Semi Monthly Organ of the Communist League of America (Opposition)
MILITANT VOL. II. No. 13 NEW YORK, AUGUST 15, 1929.
PRICI CENTS UNITED FRONT FOR GASTONIA Fight the Frame up! Defend the Right to Organize and Strike!
nothing a genuine istic predictions of a the Civil of hand they Danger Signals in the East The change of venue and the delay in the trial of the Gastonia defendents. As matters stand now those class struggle. Faction interests are alien and hostile the Gastonia strikers is a slight advantage for the de lements in these organizations who really want to to the interests of the case.
fense of which the most should be made.
It offers help, and there are no doubt many of them, are not The Communist League of America, in crimen with breathing space in the preparation and organization organized and those who are not sincere in their de all class conscious elements in the labor movement, of the defense movement, provides a little more time clarations are furnished with a good excuse for doing wants to take part in a united movement ir the deto ally a broader and more powerful movement and The right move by the International Labor fense of Gastonia. If we have resorted to criticism to correct errors in the defense tactics. All this Defense which is in charge of the defense can straight of the management of the case it is only because the important and valuable, for a defense movement be en out the situation, mobilize those who want to help management has thus far failed to lead in the direcfore a trial has ten times more significance than af and show up those who do not.
tion of a united movement, because it has violated the ter conviction. This is the lesson of all great labor The should make formal proposals to all or basic lines necessary for the organization of such cases from Moyer and Haywood to Sacco and Vanzetti. ganizations in the working class movement for united movement, because it has followed a serian policy The change of venue also has a value in the removal action regardless of political differences. Along with inimical to the interests of the workers fight for the of the trial from the lynching atmosphere systematic such formal proposals to the official leadership of the Gastonia prisoners, because it has pushed aside the ally worked up against the prisoners in Gaston Coun various organizations there should be a public appeal cooperation of those who want to help. The rejecty. But this should not be the occasion for illusions. to all workers to cooperate in a united front tion of the delegates of the Communist League uf The capitalist courts remain what they were instru movement. The organization machinery for the unit America at the Chicago Conference of the is ments of capitalist frame up justice and the optim ed front movement should be United Front Gastonia a case in point an example of criminal factionalism fair trial by Liberties Defense Conferences patterned on the Sacco Vanzetti for which we know no precedent in American labor Union have be rejected out of because Conferences, the Passaic Strike Conferences and the history. The failure to reply to the letter of the tend to disarm the workers in a bitter life and death old Moyer Haywood Conferences, all of which followed of July 18th offering cooperation, as printed class fight. To condemn this attitude it is not neces the same line. It is false to attempt to form these con in Solidarity for August 14th, likewise deserves the sary to represent the change of venue and the delay as ferences as direct adjuncts of the. This pro strongest condemnation. The Communists rightly cria blow at the defense. This is merely irresponsible cedure, as experience has already shown, attracts only ticised the Sacco Vanzetti Defense Committee for its foolishness, since the defense fought for this decision.
organizations under the direct influence of the Party, narrow policy, but this committee never made the misFundamentally the case stands where it stood before, thrusts aside all elements at war with the Communists take of directly refusing the cooperation of any group.
with the class relations and the main issues the same and leaves the conservative workers untouched. Un We repeat again the sentiment of all class conand with a slight improvement in the posftion of the der the present conditions a really broad and powerful scious workers: Organize all progressive forces in defense.
movement cannot be organized on this line. the labor movement and all honest sympathizing eleThe Gastonia case is a labor case, and a case of The Gastonia case is a matter of desperate serious ments into a single united movement for the defeat of the classic frame up of the workers. The right to organ ness for the entire labor movement. Workers lives the Gastonia frame up and the defense of the workize and strike and the fight against the frame up system and basic working class rights are at stake. Such is crs right to organize and strike.
are the real issues involved. All the evidence shows that sues cannot be a factional monopoly or plaything, National Committee the police militia and thugs of the mill owners were Factionalism has no place in such great issues of the The Communist League of America (Opposition)
the instigators of violence against the workers. There is no proof that the fatal shots were fired by the strikers. No one has been so identified, no one has admitted such responsibility and it is certain that no such proof can be brought against the strike leaders.
The case thus has all the characteristics of a typical certain sharpening of the situation is evident in From the proletarian point of view, Russia has as litlabor frame up.
the present dispute between the Soviet Union and the tle claim to the railway as Chiang Kai Shek; it beThe whole nature of the case indicates the rallying Chinese counter revolution around the question of the longs to the workers and peasants of China who will slogans of the defense movement: Chinese Eastern Railway. Troop mobilizations on both justly claim it when they come to power. Unless this Fight the Frame up!
sides of the Manchurian border are being increased. is stated frankly and openly we should be deceiving Safeguard the workers right to organize and strike! Shots have been exchanged by contending patrols, in and misleading the workers.
Slogans are the guiding line for action and it is of which a number of Red Army soldiers were killed. We are opposed to the atmosphere in which the the utmost importance that they be formulated cor The opposing forces consisted for the most part of dispute is being conducted by Stalin. It is the atrectly. In our opinion it is not correct to make the White Guard Russians who are operating against the mosphere of bourgeois diplomacy, in which the existright of self defense the central slogan of the camSoviets with the covert support of Chiang Kai Shek ence of negotiations (that were actually carried on paign. An entirely different set of circumstances would and Co. The Chinese reactionaries, and the White between Russia and China for a time) are denied. It Guards in particular, are working hard to involve has nothing in common with the exemplary conduct of be necessary for this. Such a leading slogan would apply only if the actual responsibility for the fatal Russia in a war that may have tremendous conse the Bolsheviks at Brest Litovsk in 1918, charged with shooting were clearly established and med by quences.
the internationalist spirit of Lenin and Trotsky. In defendents. This is not the case, and in the absence Nevertheless, the main indications point to the un 1918, the open and frank appeals of the Bolsheviks of these conditions it is false to put this slogan as the likelihood of a serious war situation developing. The really led to the defeat of the German Junkers and guiding line of the campaign. It tends to narrow down imperialist press, and the imperialist powers, while the beginning of the German revolution Stalin presthe movement of defense and it assumes a revolu they jockey for more advantageous positions in the ent policy in China will never yield such a harvest.
tionary atmosphere and class development which does dispute, give no direct support to the action of the The Chinese proletariat and peasantry cannot and will not exist. It sounds radical. but being false and Chinese Russia has been maneuvered into the unfort not be rallied to overthrow the counter revolution, to unrealistic it does not serve radical ends.
unate position where it is defending its economic claims support the Soviet Union, to the standard of socialism The fundamental interests of the working class are to property located on foreign soil and to the inviola by appealing to them to fight for Russian economic at stake in the Gastonia trial as they were in the time bility of treaty rights. This is a dangerous position claims in China.
of Moyer and Haywood, Ettor and Giovanitti, Mooney for the Workers Republic.
Neither is it correct to say that the main danger of and Billings, Centralia and Sacco and Vanzetti. The The imperialists are opposed to China seizure of war now exists in an attack on the Soviet Union by nature of the case and the interests of the working the railway because it strengthens the precedents for imperialism. The main danger of war today exists class and of the prisoners call for a broad united front similar actions against the concessions and extra terriprimarily in the growing intensity of the conflicts bemovement of defense. This idea must be the central toriality rights of Japan, England, France and the tween British and American imperialism. The chief strategy of the campaign.
United States. The imperialists want to use Russia danger to the dictatorship of the proletariat lies in United front movements do not spring out of the present attitude to justify their hold upon the economic steady penetration of Russian economic life by imground. They must be organized. How is it to be or and financial resources of China, and rob the Soviet perialist concessionaries, the growing strength and ganized in this case exclusively from below? No, this Union (and the revolutionary movement as a whole) influence of the Kulak, the Nepman and the state buis a wrong approach. The united front from below of the moral basis for protesting against these hold reaucracy, of the Thermidorian and counter revolualone follows only from the failure to secure any cotionary elements in the country. That is what threatings.
operation from leading elements in non Communist or Every worker will have as his first duty to lend ens the Russian revolution most acutely today.
a conscientious attempt has been ganizations, after The Stalinist press has nothing to say in answer to every ounce of support to the Soviet Union to defend made, and after refusal of the leaders to cooperate it from intervention and attack. But Russia will not our viewpoint than to foully accuse the Opposition of united action has been definitely established be find it possible to arouse the sentiments of the work being allies of Chang Kai Shek. This will deceive fore the workers belonging to and following the other ers of the world to fight for Russian economic claims no one. When the Opposition was demanding a break organizations. It cannot be said that such is the case outside of the Soviet Union, on foreign soil. The fact with Chiang Kai Shek as an enemy of the revolution now in regard to Gastonia because the attempt has that the railway was built by Russian (czarist) money, in China and Russia, when Chiang Kai Shek was not been made.
or that Russian participation was guaranteed in a strangling the Chinese working class and peasantry On the other hand, numerous organizations in the treaty with the reactionary and defunct government and beginning to drown it in a sea of blood, it was Stalin and Bucharin who maintained a most intimate working class movement the new progres of Chang Tso Lin, or that the railway is necessary for sive movement, numerous unions, Anarchists, Russian transports to Vladivostock, are not valid aralliance with him, who glorified him as the revolution etc. have issued declarations of support for guments for a revolutionary workers government. Continued on Page