The Semi Monthly Organ of the Communist League of America (Opposition)
MILITANT VOL. II. No. 14.
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 15, 1929.
PRICE CENTS The Conference at Cleveland on the No Illusions Gastonia Trial Burglaries Forecast of the Work of the New Trade Union Center We go to press before the sessions of the Cleveland ust 30, 1929 on the tasks of the conference, which is conference of the have opened; it is there valuable only for its bluntness and not for its profore necessary to deal with the and decisions posals. What Foster is cautious enough to equivocate of the conference in detail in next issue of the about, or encircle with qualification, Johnstone blurts Militant. However, there are already a sufficient num out. Like the proposed constitution and program of ber of signs that indicate what the character of the the he tips his hat brusquely to the necesAs the trial in Charlotte, of the 16 Gastonia conference will be. We mention a few of them here, sity for working in the old unions, but on this basis: textile strikers and leaders gets under way, it deand each of them, from a different direcuon, cast the that the Left wing is to work in the old unions only velopes certain features which, though dissimilar to shadow of what will take place in Cleveland.
for the purpose of splitting off what they can to afmany that characterized the trial of Sacco and Van1. The delegation from the southern vextile fields filiate these splinters to the new trade union center, zetti years ago, does not change the primary fact that will probably be the only really representative and in This is plain enough, at any rate. Not only does it it is a frame up of workers because of their activity portant group the conference. Mosv of the other violate all we learned in the Communist movement in tie labor movement.
delegations represent wishes and hopes instead of sub about work in the basic mass organizations of the These features, deliberately developed by the prostance. We were not taken in by the empty fanfare workers, but it precludes any possibility for carrying secution and the judge, are calculated to create an arti and delegations at the fake Federated farmer Labor on such work. This grows plainer every day. The ficial atmosphere of fairness. by a scrupulous re Party convention in 1928; we are not gullible enough new line results in the surrender of the or more gard for polite formalities, by insignificant conces to swallow the delegates representing the masses of millions of workers still in the of to the sions to defense attorneys, by banquets to the the unorganized in the shape of formless mass meet mercies of Green.
prosecution and defense counsel, and by a general ings, or, as in most cases, of Party fraction meetings The proof of the virtual liquidation of Party and skilful handling of the case by the judicial harpies of in a shop. The conference was extremely ill prepared, Left wing activity in the of unions is now the Southern textile barons. Why? In order to disarm its slogans were wrong, it was organized in a purely mountain high. dozen trade union conventions in the protest movement of the workers by creating the administrative manner without worrying about the the last few weeks alone could be cited where not a impression that the defendants are guaranteed a square masses of the workers. This is not the way organsingle Left wing delegate was in evidence, and in many, deal at the hands of the chivalrous gentlemen of the ize the unorganized workers, but to confuse them and cares for the first time. At the Minnesota State Fedblack robe. The greatest danger to the interests of to lay the basis for their disillusionment.
eration of Labor Convention (at Mankato) only the defendants lies precisely in these illusions. Johnstone article in the Daily Worker of Aug. Votaw, member of the Communist League, was a The role now being assumed by Judge Barnhill in delegate, with no other Left winger present. The New Charlotte has been played before, and more than once.
York State Federation of Labor convention had repIt was played by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to Lovestone resentatives of the Muste group acting as the only perfection in the trial the 100 Chiopposition, insipid and timid as it was, to the mach cago during the war, and he succee very neatly in ine.
It makes a lot of difference whose office is burglardisarming the radical press generally. The conviction Numerous other instances show the same dark and the savage sentences he meted out which had been ized, it seems. The Lovestoneites whose skill with the picture or darker. If this situation can possibly grow prepared behind this screen, came as a rude jolt to jimmy and the dark lantern is well known have turned worse, the new line of the is sure ta contribute its big mite.
those who thought that fair words and false appeartheir attention and their burglarious talents to the ances did away with the class struggle and the class National office of the Communist Party, and the work4. The Eastern conference of the Marine Workers function of the capitalist courts.
ers who have waited a long time for the whole truth League. The ultra mechanical control by the Party It is in the light of this and similar experiences that are informed in horrified accents that the Party boss of this movement has throttled it until it is almost a the workers should read the words of Norman Thomof yesterday, blessed by Stalin, saluted by Foster, is wreck. The results of the policy of alienating and drivas, the new evangelist of the Socialist Party, in the not only a petty bourgeois politician and an opportun ing away all elements not members of the Party New Leader (August 31, 1929. He writes enthuist but is a burglar and all around crook as well. The and of a certain Party faction, at that has narrowed the League down to its present shadow and resulted siastically: Hats off to Judge Barnhill for his remark working class public on last Tuesday was edified by able fairness thus far to the Gastonia defendants.
a detailed account of the robbery in the Daily worker.
in a turn out of 31 delegates, of whom represented At least North Carolina is to be spared the disgrace This exhibition of criminality is indeed a shocking no one at all in New Orleans, more represented the of a Webster Thayer.
spectacle which shames and discredits the communist same grand total in Galveston, another spoke for This is the quintessence of socialist and liberal wismovement, undermines its prestige and makes it the nobody in Boston, with the same from Norwalk. New, dom, which limits objection to the frame up system to laughing stock of its enemies. Every revolutionary York represented about 100 members, Philadelphia and Baltimore 50 each. The splendid possibilities for the the crude jobs of the bungling Thayers. In reality, and every conscientious worker must and will condemn it is the smoother and suaver Barnhills and Landises the Lovestone gangsters who have demonstrated once organization of the movement were whistled away, but who are better exponents of the frame up system preagain that they stand on the moral level the unthose put in charge of the work. On the newly elected cisely because of their superior technique. Only a derworld. Such elements are alien to the working class. Executive Committee, there are approximately three blockhead or socialist liberal can fail to see this. They belong the category of criminals who live by actual seamen. The real inner powers of the MarIn the Gastonia case, the prosecution is seeking to their wits, their black jacks and their jimmies.
ine Workers League remain Mink, Sparks and Soestablish the responsibility of leaders for all acts of But if the burglary of the National office, and the mers, who are the kind of seamen that would look violence that occur during a struggle. The attempt second one a few days later of a section headquarters, for the foc sle in the galley and for the bo sun on to establish this principle, on the one hand, and were a black tragedy, there is at least a comic relief.
the bridge. Left wing and revolutionary militants like the struggle of the labor movement against it, on This is supplied by the outbursts of moral indignation Jim Gildea, John Russell, Hector Macray, Brophy, the other, run like red thread through the history from the Foster Wicks leadership of the Party. To Rose, Fred Crowley, Sizemore and King, were either.
Ame trials since the days of Hay.
hear these people cry one would think they had never wangled out, driven away, or disciplined out of activmarket martyrs. This is the essential aspect of the seen a burglary before, much less taken part in one toity. Their misfortune is that they have experience, aGastonia frame up as it has been in many other cases.
gether with Lovestone. The two robberies of the ofbility, authority and prestige among the seamen. Four The real attempt there is to fasten upon Beal and other fice of the Opposition last winter were carried out delegates go from this conference to Cleveland to repleaders, who were not even present at the tent colony jointly by them with him. It was an official job resent American seamen!
when the fatal shooting occurred, the responsibility for which they took no pains even to conceal or deny.
the death regardiess of who fited the shots. With such a The stolen documents were flamboyantly displayed a The Cleveland conference meets under the warnprecedent fixed, every active fighter and leader in few days later in the Daily Worker and the combined ing sign of three severe defeats for the Left wing in the New York unions. The loss of the Left wing the working class movement can become an easy forces of Lovestone and Foster, then happily united, target for any kind of prosecution for events taking proclaimed to the world that their mutual love was the furriers strike and the triumph of the Right wing place entirely out of his control. With such a precekind that laughs at locksmiths; that if they couldn among the cloakmakers, have delivered a dizzying blow, to the organized left wing in New York. In addition, dent a Wall Street bomb explosion caused by accianswer our arguments they could at least rob our last week election of officers at the Iron und Bronze dent or by provocateurs, can become the basis for a house and make away with the loot. Those who apwholesale victimization.
plauded the burglaries of Lovestone while he was the Workers Union, under the leadership of the Left wing This is the central feature of the Gastonia case which secretary of the Party have no ground to complain for years, returned a complete Right wing slate, oustgives it a particular claim upon the whole labor movewhen their chickens coine home to roost.
ing Rosenfeld, Hofbauer, Powers and Karin who ran ment, besides the general claim of solidarity which In view of this the fulminations against the latest for re election, and giving over the executive board every worker prosecuted in the capitalist courts for burglary sound a bit hollow. Stalinism brought with of the union completely to the Rights. Philistine phi. his activity in the class struggle has a right to make.
it into the International all the methods of which osophers will always find objective conditions to Precisely for this reason, and for many others that the present Party leaders complain and they them explain these alarming facts. We find the cause where we have adduced in previous issues of the Militant, selves have used them against the Opposition. There it actually lies in the false, the radically false policy fore we would not advise anyone take their of the Left wing, that is, of the Communist Party do we repeat the necessity to emphasize the slogan of leadership the Fight against the Gastonia frame up! as the loud protests against the underworld and pocentral rallying cry of the fight for the defense. The lice methods of Lovestone as an indication of a The Cleveland conference will run quite smoothly, slogan of the right to self defense of the workers serious intention on their part to swear off and go we know. That has been taken care of in the usual involved, as the main and only slogan in the camstraight. It is safer to rely on stronger locks and a way. It will be of service in emphasizing the great paign, appears to be very radical and revolutionwatchman with a shotgun.
necessity of organizing the unorganized millions, deary solely upon the surface. In essence, it narrows manded by us over a year ago. But few, if any, clear the fight to a legal tilt between prosecution and de countless dead and imprisoned have taught us that voices will be raised to demand the revival of the corfense, confined to the court room, to establish the the real defense of the workers is a militant protest rect line that can fructify the excellent objective pos preponderance of evidence on the weighty question sibilities into blossoming realities. For our part, we movement.
of. who fired the first shot, as though the class strug The organization of this movement on the broadest will continue to demand the application of the teachgle would be suspended while this fine point was fair basis remains our central task. The formation of a ings of Lenin on work in the trade unions, the united ly adjudicated. As though the honest witnesses for the united front. in deeds against the Gastonia framefront policy, the organization of the unorganized in defense are sure to outnumber and outweigh the hired up is a duty of the hour.
reality and not in manifestoes and fake conferences, perjurers of the prosecution backed by mill owners Those who want a working class victory for Gasthe collaboration with workers following the progresmoney.
tonia must and will work for this with all their sives, the fight for the class struggle in the unions.
The workers must be on guard. No illusions! Our might.