October 15, 1929 THE MILITANT Page THE MINE BATTLE Finois Miner and circulars, with the result that he is THE UNIONS Corruption in Illinois Union the same method as Fishwick, that is, they have for gotten all about the work inside the old locals of the Split up Labor Movement By Joseph Angelo By Hedlund NEW OPPOSITION Among the Russian Youth worker. and even the conductor and the engineer, are Why, even Lewis is winning influence at the expense of the Communists.
Several things have happened lately in Illinois mine In the West Frankfort trial to set aside the injuncfields. Among the more important is the struggle of tion, the Fishwick machine, in one of its contentions, There are about 1, 700, 000 workers employed in the the Fishwick Farrington Walker machine against the charged that Lewis has made his peace with the leaders railroad transportation industry in this country. About Lewis machine.
of the National Miners Union in Illinois and has the one million of those workers are not organized at all, support of the Reds in the present struggle against the remaining 700, 000 The renewal of this old struggle between the Illinois divided into 21 autonomous Fishwick fakers and the Lewis gang began toward the end of This story has become very common on and helpless craft unions. Each one of these unions the last miners strike. The differences arose afresh on the street corners and the mines that Lewis has the maintains its own set of officials, journals, headquarthe question of how the Illinois miners were to be be support of the Reds in the campaign against Fishwick.
ters, organizers and lodge halls; the most antiquated trayed. At that time the Fishwick machine seemed When such charges made against the National form of labor organization known. In no other into have come out victorious, Lewis West Virginia Miners Union in a capitalist court, and they are not dustrial country in the world do we find the railroad Kentucky ruinous policy lost, and the treacherous wage even denied in the Coal Digger nor even a leaflet on workers divided into 21 separate unions and less than cut policy of Fishwick accepted.
the situation, that is giving objective support to the fifty per cent organized, and this in spite of the fact, most corrupt labor faker in the United States.
that in no other country are the employers so well orImmediately Lewis began a campaign to organize ganized as they are here.
the Illinois miners, chambermaids and waitresses, by sending into Illinois hotels a crew of international orHowever, the economic conditions which gave rise to our present trade union structure on the railroads ganizers. Then the Fishwick machine backed John Walker, president of the Illinois Federation of Laare gradually disappearing and this change naturally bor, as a candidate for Lewis shoes. Lewis swung a right hand interpretation of the miners constitution and Walker went down for a count of ten.
The former leader of the Leninist Young, Communist union, of which he is a member, is no longer a match The next place that we hear about this struggle is League of the Soviet Union, and a founder of the Youth for the gigantic combinations of organized capital. He in the Peoria sub district, where the Fishwick machine International comrade Schatzkin, and comrade Sten, had expelled a dozen miners for slandering the honorsees the craft union falling down everywhere in the able Mr. Fish wick. This time again, the lovable Mr. Red Professor. have now been placed in the center fight for better wages. These developments breed a Lewis shoots left hand interpretation of the conof a sharp attack by the official organs of the us growing demand for needed change among the worksian The differences between Schatzkin Sten ers, a change of program and organizational structure.
stitution and back goes the Lewis dozen into the union.
Then this same daily dozen that Lewis took under his and the League have undoubtedly assumed serious pro Behind these proposed changes we find the growing portions and the two comrades have apparently found minority of workers who study and think. Against this fold runs on Lewis program against the Fishwick sub district flunkeys and captures the whole sub disa strong circle of supporters, since even the Rote program we find arrayed the most useless, reactionary Fahne, official organ of the German Stalinists, is and overpaid labor bureaucracy in the world.
trict.
Does Fishwick call for enough? Oh, no. Walker is obliged to inform its readers about the new event. The The writer of this article is employed as locomotive Fishwick side partner with Farrington in reserve.
American Party press lags behind as usual and fur engineer on a run between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Fishwick calls the Illinois miners into a convention nishes no information whatsoever on the matter. Its Elroy, Wisconsin. Elroy is a typical railroad terminal.
at Peoria and takes a couple of verbal slams at Lewis leaders will probably hear about it for the first time There are thousands of such terminals in the United after the Stalin faction has taken some disciplinary and has the packed convention elect John Walker States and Canada. Outside of a small group of oras an official of the Illinois union so that Walker may measures against the riew opposition.
dinary business men the entire town consists of railbe eligibile to run for Lewis shoes at the next miners Comrades Schatzkin and Sten voiced their critical road workers and their families. Yet, on account of convention.
conceptions in a number of articles in Komsomolskaia the fact that the railroadmen are divided into 21 sepThen Lewis comes back at Fishwick by sending into Pravda, organ of the Russian The paper has arate and distinct crafts, there is no labor activity of Illinois Colonel Samuel Pascoe, president of the debeen reprimanded for that and the sword has now been any kind the town. There are no local lodges here funct Kentucky district. This President Colonel Pas drawn in an article against Schatzkin and Ster. They because there are not enough members of each craft coe (he has a whole string of titles, more than can be have attempted to unfold their notorious anti Party to maintain one. The men who belong to the union remembered) moves around the Illinois hotels and conceptions and under the mask of seemingly Left send their dues to the point where the local union is they are much safer than the hotels of Kentucky) and, conceptions they have seriously approached the Trot located, at Chicago, Duluth, or the Twin Cities, as the of all things, this bird finds that corruption is going skyist standpoint on the Party and Party discipline. case may be. Thousands of railroad workers in the on in Illinois in the Frankfort sub di ict.
Comrade Sten is upbraided for having sought, in an ar small terminals like Elroy never see the inside of a An investigation proved that the Fishwick sub disticle Up with the Communist Banner of Marxist Len union hall. The railroad workers at Elroy, thanks to trict official flunkeys took quite bit of miners money inism. to liberate the Youth League from the influ the craft system, have no labor hall, no labor meetand property that should have gone into the pocket of ence of the a Prty. He declares for freedom of opinion, ings or activity of any kind. The town administration Lewis. And this made Lewis pretty mad. First, there free choice of political line for every member. consist of a lawyer and a few business men, this in were fifty thousand dollars that were be distributed He wants every one to determine his attitude towards spite of the fact that the town is overwhelmingly workamong the miners in the West Frankfort sub district Party policy in his own way. that the political line ingclass.
of which only twenty thousand dollars can be accounted shall be determined only on the ground of one own Yes, Elroy is a typical railroad terminal, where the for by the sub district officials. Second, there is the experience, independent of the Party and its collective railroad workers, as elsewhere, are victims of an obsoWest Frankfort Labor Temple, the property of an experience.
lete system of labor organization. Elroy has no labor abandoned local union deeded over to individuals the That is how the article in Rote Fahne presents the unions, no labor activity, either industrial or political, officials of the sub district. Third, there is the sum of matter.
but it has a local organization of the American Legion, thirty two thousand dollars of another abandoned lo Schatzkin has become even more definite. And that consisting of railroad workers and farmers, five or six cal union drawn out by the same sub district officials. is why anathema is hurled even more heavily at him. churches, several soft drink parlors, pool halls and Lewis demands West Frankfort sub district He is trying to disparage the value of the unani a moving picture show where the customary froth of officials ome to Indianapolis for an accounting. At mity of the Party in the struggle against Trotskyism sex and adventure is dished out to the working class.
once, Fishwick calls a conference of his board mem and against the Right opportunists. He doubts the Against these conditions in the railroad terminals bers, sub district officials, also Walker and Farrington, political maturity of a great part of the Party. He in Decatur, as in Springfield there were too many or maintains that the Party has sunk into philistinism. hood misleaders have no remedy save a program of exand in the railroad unions the high salaried Brotherganizers trying to organize the waitresses. At this He declares that even tested Bolsheviks, who have be pulsion of the militant minority, the growing left wing conference, after much debating, Farrington policy hind them a hard school of revolutionary struggle, sub in the Railroad Brotherhoods.
prevailed. Farrington proposed that the West Frank mit to Party decisions and fight for them not because Against this program of inactivity and reaction of fort sub district officials tell Lewis to go to hell, that of their revolutionary consciousness, not because of a in case Lewis takes the charter away from the sub dis firm conviction in their correctness, but as pure phil what is needed, has a definite program of organization, the official drones, the left wing, which understands trict, they must go into court and get an injunction istines who say Yes to everything decided by the maj. amalgamation and a formation of a Labor political against Lewis and fight it out in the capitalist court. ority. Comrade Schatzkin has decided to redeem the Alright, but this would cost money and who is going to Party from this evil. In the form of a struggle against tained for the special benefit of swarms of grafters party, instead of the useless legislative boards mainfoot the bill in case they lose? This from the sub dis Philistinism he casts suspicion on the sincerity of the who infested the Brotherhoods.
trict officials involved.
struggle against the Right deviation. Schatzkin beSo the conference decided to create a Red Fund to lieves that the victory over the Right was not achieved making considerable progress. It has learned at least In Minneapolis the left wing in the Brotherhoods is the tune of ten thousand dollars. This money is to be thanks to the politically correct line of the Party and to a degree how to organize itself in local and union used in the fight against Lewis but the miners were its energetic defense against the Right opportunists, to be told that this money was used for the purpose of but thanks to the inertia and emptiness of the Party meetings behind a practical program of demands to the despair of the reactionary officials. These demands may fighting against the Reds in the West Frankfort dis philistine.
be summarized as follows: trict.
The criticism of comrades Schatzkin and Sten apAmalgamation of Engineers and Firemen; a Alright, the sub district faker would not divide up parently embodies a mood within the that is joint organization drive conducted by the 21 craft the money and property with Lewis, so Lewis took not to be underestimated, and it is only too compreaway the charter from the sub district and established hensible that this mood against the bureaucratic spirit the crafts, which will have for its purpose the raising unions coupled with a wage movement, backed by all a provisional sub district with a set of his own hench and its effects, against the complete deadening of of the minimum wage level in the railroad industry; men. The old sub district officers go into court and any political life, should find expression precisely a Labor larty instead of a Labor Lobby (the Legiscome out with an injunction restraining Lewis from in among the youth. The absolute compulsion to swing lative Boards. reduction of officials salaries to the terfering in their racket. Lewis then goes before an into line with official opinion, the unconditional recoglevel of union wages, and to compel the of other judge and has the injunction set aside and his nition of the political conceptions of the leading bu official to give an itemized account to the membership henchmen are again put back in charge.
reaucracy, must arouse resistance in the youth. This of the debts which the members are being called upon The convention of the Illinois Federation of Labor phenomenon only confirms what the Oppositions has to pay by the levying of special five dollar assesswhich will be held in Rock Island beginning Septem said for years about the consequences of the Stalinist ments per month, etc.
ber 9th, will see a renewal of this warfare, as Fish regime and its inner Party course. It is therefore no More detailed treatment of our left wing work in wick has been quite busy to see that a good repre wonder that it seeks to kill Schatzkin and Sten with a the railroad Brotherhoods will be given in my next sentation of delegates from the miners locals are there mere formula: They are accused of Trotskyism. article to the Militant. a most unusual thing, as in the past the Illinois Schatzkin and Sten were permitted to make their criminers showed no interest in the Federation conven ticism only so long as it suited Stalin struggle tion. Fishwick, also, is billed as the main speaker for against the Right. But now he has made a frank and necessary and inevitable conclusions from its present the convention.
sharp swing to the Right, as is shown by the recent criticism against the bureaucratic regime, remains to The present struggle between Lewis and Fishwick decree on factory management, he can no longer be seen. But whether it goes forward logically to the is important not only to the miners of Illinois, but to tolerate such criticism. It is therefore declared: support of the Leninist Opposition, or capitulates the Communist movement as well. The Communist The Party considers the struggle against the weakly before the Centrist apparatus, the fact remains movement, instead of growing in this struggle, is con Right danger as its principal task. The arti that its criticisms are an expression of the discontent tinually losing ground, while the Lewis machine is cles of comrades Schatzkin, Sten and others re and uneasiness over the present regime and its line growing by leaps and bounds. The Lewis machine mind us of the necessity of fighting on two fronts, that are growing among the Youth in particular. The is taking this fight into the loacl unions of Illinois, that it, in the struggle against the Right, not to forget next future will create even more divisions and deepen working through the local unions, and it has already the struggle against the Trotskyist remnants, the traces them. Stalin sailless vessels cannot hold together in captured not only two whole sub districts but the sen of which come to light plainly in the irresponsible and any political storm. Cut loose from the Left and from timent throughout Ilinois is much more favorable to injurious outburst of the above comrades.
the Right, the Centrist apparatus is doomed to new ward Lewis machine than have seen it for some time. Whether or not the new Opposition will draw the splits and factional struggles.