The Semi Monthly Organ of the Communist League of America (Opposition)
VOL. II. No. 15.
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1, 1929 PRICE CENTS The Drive for the WEEKLY Lynch Law in Gastonia Chiang Kai Shek War Drive The savage mercenaries of North Carolina mill gives the prosecution, faithful servant of the mills, barons have claimed their first blood sacrifice. With additional time to tighten its frame up net, to terrorize The announcement in the last issue of the final decision to launch the WEEKLY MILITANT on November tremendous odds on their side, the lust maddened the union fighters and prevent them from mobilizing 7th, 1929, the twelfth anniversary of the Bolshevik chivalrous gentlemen of the South attacked a truckthe support of the workers everywhere. They know load of textile workers and murdered a defenseless that it is onl revolution, has aroused great enthusiasm in the ranks chis support that the Gastonia demother of five children, Ella May Wiggins. Previous fendants have a chance for freedom. They know that of the Opposition. Comrades throughout the country are awaiting the first issue of if the defense is able to arouse a mass movement of WEEKLY and conto this bestial assault, three organizers of the National Textile Workers Union, Ben Wells, Lell and the American workers, it will be powerful enough to centrating all efforts on insuring its continued publication. The New York branch of the Communist Saylor were dragged out of their lodgings by a break through the legal murder conspiracy against League is now at work to raise its share of the fund.
lynching mob, driven to a lonely spot, and brutally Fred Beal and his fellow fighters on trial.
beaten. Wells was so horribly attacked that his body That is why the fighters in North Carolina must Two of our most reliable branches, Chicago and Minneapolis, write to inform us that they will subscribe was one mass of lacerations and bruises. On another break down the reign of terror of the progromists. This their part of the money required for the WEEKLY occasion, a number of organizers, including their cou will be accomplished, great though the odds may be, rageous leader, Hugo Oehler, were attacked by a wolfish if the workers throughout the Carolina battlefields are Points as far apart as Kansas City, Toronto, and Philadelphia are energetically engaged in the cammob. They succeeded in escaping miraculously with set into motion. Not all the gunmen of the Loray mills paign. Many of the other branches are also taking up only a few blows struck. Right after the murder of will be able to withstand the resistance of a mass movethe question of the drive with enthusiasm.
Ella Wiggins, organizer Cleo Tessner was kidnapped at ment.
Every day brings a new event that demonstrates the gunpoint, by the same gang; blackjacked, beaten with That is why every textile militant will have to defend imperative need of a militant organ of the class clubs and almost strung from a tree.
himself and his union at all costs. Every worker has The Black Hundreds of North Carolina continue struggle that is able to bring clarity of purpose and the right and duty to defend himself against the mura action into the labor and revolutionary movement. The their horrors with impunity. Homes are raided and derous attacks of the gunmen. Every drop of blood bureaucracy of the American Federation of Labor promeeting places are dynamited. reign of terror has that is shed in the Carolina struggle will fall upon the ceeds from one betrayal to another. It has just finished been instituted. The very lives of every organizer and head of the capitalist class, from the mill owners and delivering the fighting carmen New Orleans bound active union worker hang by a hair. It is courting the governor, down to the prosecutor and the police, hand and foot to the traction interests. It is trying death for any of them to walk the streets alone or That is why every worker throughout the country to organize its trade unions against the Gastonia vicunarmed, or to sleep in the same house for more than must help forge a solid ring of defense around the one night. The police and the other legal authorities, victims of the Gastonia frame up. The second trial is tims of the Southern reaction, instead of for them.
who are more often than not in direct cahoots with the The organized forces in the of that can chalcoming up again, and only the workers united efforts lenge Messrs. Green and Woll are being weakened and bloodthisty hoodlums, do nothing to prevent these out can set them free. Capitalist courts are where labor devitalized by the senseless policy of the Communist rages for the simple reason that they exist solely for fighters are legally killed and imprisoned. The labor Party. The MILITANT, from the very beginning, han the purpose of protecting the gorged profits of the movement where they are freed. All who stand in fought against this line of leaving the reactionaries mill lords from the demands of the workers for im the way of uniting every worker, every workers organan open field in the of instead of fighting them proved conditions.
ization, irrespective political and economic opinions, inch by inch for the leadership of the organized workThe reactionary camorra of mill owners, gunmen, into one mighty front for the defense, will be brushed ers. As a WEEKLY it will be able to increase this police courts, and the state power, are frenziedly set aside. Away with sectarian frivolity! Fighters for work manifold.
upon running the National Textile Workers Union. out our class are in danger of their lives. Workers, exThe other side of the picture the situation in the of North Carolina. They are in a cold sweat of fear at press your solidarity!
Communist movement shows the need of the WEEK the prospect of an organized militant textile workers Have your organizations join in the protest move LY even more keenly. The movement is in a severe union that will defeat the slaves from the arrogant ment. Send funds to the Defense to help than fight for crisis. The tremendous work of gathering the forces encroachments of the bosses.
Gastonia. Demand a united struggle. Labor united of American Communism in the past decade is being Their other purpose is to poison the atmosphere in one movement is all powerful, and strong enough to broken down by the irresponsible direction and policies against the Gastonia strikers who are on trial for their break down even prison bars and to destroy the lynchers of the Communist Party leadership. Expulsions, deeplives. The mistrial declared in the Charlotte court of the working class.
going splits, confusion and corruption are the order of the day in the Party. The weakening of the Communist movement is a profound blow at the labor movement as a whole, since the Communists are its most active, its clearest and most militant section. The fight to revive the Communist movement on the foundations of Efforts of the Russian White Guards, working under the proletarian dictatorship, as is reported to the Party Marx and Lenin which enabled it to grow so powerfully the direction of the Chinese reactionaries, to provoke Congress now in session, and are refusing to turn over at one time is a fight in the interests of all the workers.
the Soviet Union into a war over the Chinese Eastern their grain crops, committing arson and murder, in the The MILITANT, which has conducted this stubborn fight Railway, continue to be exerted along the Manchurian hopes that the outbreak of war will change the relation since its inception, will be enabled to multiply its efborder. Every day brings additional information of of forces to their advantage. The Russian workers forts as a WEEKLY.
raids conducted by White Guard and Chinese cavalry will be mobilized if their economic and political posiThe MILITANT is the organ of the class conscious or other military detachments against Russian villages, tion is improved at the expense of the Kulaks, Nepworkers. It is they who must put their shoulders to the wheel and make it certain that the WEEKLY MILwhich the Nanking and Mukden authorities either deny men and the Bureaucracy. But Stalin, with his policy took place or blandly refuse to take responsibility for. of industrialization at the expense of the workers, canITANT is insured for the first period.
We are conNot satisfied with these crimes, the hangmen of the not achieve this aim. The defense of the Soviet Union fident that they will respond. If an average of Two Chinese people continue with their vicious attacks upon the highest duty of every worker demands the reHUNDRED comrades and friends will pledge an average Soviet citizens in China. Not only have dozens of these placement of the Stalinist bureaucracy by the Bolof ONE for next period the WEEKLY MILITANT is guaranteed to appear regbeen imprisoned and held incommunicado under the shevik leadership it expelled from the Party and sent most atrocious conditions, but many of them have into exile.
ularly as the voice of the revolutionary workers in every been massacred on the streets.
struggle. The small sacrifice involved in this is as The Chinese reactionaries hope that by these acts the nothing compared to the tremendous sacrifices being made today by our Russian comrades disemployment, Russians can be sufficiently infuriated to take such MASS MEETING measures as would lead to war. In that case Chiang imprisonment, exile and banishment for the cause of Kai Shek would appeal to the Lcague of Nations and the proletariat. Those who can make a bigger pledge The Crisis in the American than ONE DOLLAR WEEK should do so and make the other signatories to the hypocritical Kellogg Pact up for the workers who cannot be reached by us. Those (which the Soviet Union made the mistake of signing)
Communist Mavement who can make an outright donation should send it in to lend their imperialist armies to repel the Soviet militarists with the aim of military invasion of the Expulsions and splits are taking place with greater frequency immediately.
Workers Republic. The Chinese dictator wants to in the Communist Party of the United S:t. es. The mem The MILITANT needs the support of every militant rustrate the endeavors of the Russian workers and bership and influence of the Party are on the decline. The fighter. Our small and growing regiment of Bolshevism needs your help. to increase its ammunition of struggle, peasants to arrive at a pacific settlement of the dis Lovestone group, in power in the Party for four years, has pute. In order to maintain a deceptive basis for his now been expelled. Less than a year agc it expelled the to insure the WEEKLY MILITANT.
delay in acting on the Soviet proposals, Chiang has supporters of the Russian Opposition. Trotsky) who have JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN FOR THE WEEKLY! permitted and inspired the provocative raids of the now formed the Communist League of America (OpposiFILL OUT THIS BLANK White Guards and the Chinese squadrons, knowing that tion. The Communist movement in America is in a deep the Red Army will defend itself and punish the in going crisis. How has all this happened? What is the vaders. In some instances the Red Army has already future of the Communist moveinent in the United States?
THE MILITANT pursued the White Guards so effectively that many What effect has this crisis on the American labor move Box 120, Madison Square Station, of them will never again engage in counter revolution ment? Come and hear this explained at the mass meeting New York, ary work.
arranged at the The imperialists, because of a complex of reasons, Enclosed here with contribution for.
would like to avoid a war in Manchuria at the present LABOR TEMPLE, 242 14th St. near 2nd Ave. for the WEEKLY MILITANT. pledge myself to make a regular contributime. But they hope that the situation will develop to the point where the concrete proposal can be made on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd, 1929, tion of every week towards the SU for the internationalization of the disputed railway, 7:30 sharp.
TAINING FUND FOR THE WEEKLY MILI e. for establishing a mobile imperialist fort against TANT.
the Soviet Union. This is particularly the aim of SPEAKERS: Hoover and Stimson.
JAMES CANNON MARTIN ABERN Name Confronted with these dangers, it is now more than MAX SHACHTMAN ever neccessary that a correct class policy be pursued Admission: 25 cents Bring your friends.
Address in the Soviet Union, since only a mobilization of the AUSPICES: New York Branch, Communist League of workers and poor peasants will enable Russia to meer City State and conquer these perils to its existence. The Kulaks America (Opposition. rich peasants) are resuming their bitter resistance to