MILITANT THB Page November 1, 1929.
Next Steps in the Textile Field The Left Wing and the Workmen Circle Our previous criticisms have resulted in a certain amount of polite aeknowledgement of the need for this tactie, but it has largely remained on paper. It must be applied in reality. It will serve to mobilize the broadest sections of the Southern textile workers for Two new factors have made it imperative for the ing headline on the first page of Labor Unity) cf a concerted struggle, to dispel any taint of sectarian Left wing in the textile industry to adjust its policy Fight the of and the Muste Reformists! partisan aims of the and to reveal the more radically to meet the different situation that is What is required is multiplied work of organization Green and McMahons in their true fight. The present being created in the Southern textile field. The first by the Left wing in the South. In many, if not in most narrow policy of the Left wing will have exactly an is the vicious sentences passed upon the victims of the of the situations, the workers will follow the Na opposite result, and involve a set back for it of long Gastonia frame up, the failure to indict anyone for the tional Textile Workers Union essentially because it duration. The Left wing must take the initiative in outrageous murder of Ella May Wiggins, and the sim shows greater initiative and readiness to fight than the proposing joint action.
ilar faljure to act against the lynch mob that attacked United Textile Workers Union, because it gets there That the labor fakers will reject it is not of deand beat up the union organizers Lell, Sayior and first. What the Southern workers need and want is cisive importance in the long run. The masses of the Wells. The second is the decision of the of a labor union that will lead them in a fight against workers, even the inexperienced slaves of the South will convention in Toronto adopted with a crusading fer their frightful conditions of work. That is why any understand the fight for unity conducted by the Left vor to begin organizational work among the Southern tendency to slacken down or decrease the forces of the wing. They will welcome it and regard the textile mill slaves. in the South at the present time would as the ever ready champion of the united strugprove disastrous for the future.
On the contrary, It would be futile to under estimate the effect of gle for their interests. Such a course can only strenththese two developments upon the situation in the South. the organizing forces and support must be greatly en and increase the ranks of the Left wing union, set Only by evaluating it soberly will the Left wing be increased and the prestige already gained by the left larger groups of workers into motion, and increase in enabled to make further progress in spite of the enorwing union followed up.
them the distrust and contempt that the class conscious mous obstacles.
In addition to that, however, the Left wing now needs workers already have for the professional agents of The court decisions will have a two fold result. The more than ever before the policy of the united front. capitalism in the labor movement.
Southern workers, the bulk of whom are entering the active field of class struggle for the first time and are, for that and other reasons, still weighted down by deep seated illusions about our class society, will be jolted loose from some of these illusions by the crude The National Conference of the Left wing and pro and such a leadership.
class character of the court decisions. It will become gressive branches and minorities in the Workmen 4. The has joined openly with counter revclear to then that workers are sent away virtually Circle, the Jewish labor fraternal order, held in New olution in the United States by endorsing the Socialist for life because they were devoted fighters for labor, York City on October 11, 12 and 13, decided unan Party and donating money to it. Can the authors of while the paid gangsters of the capitalists are set free imously to call upon all of its supporters to withdraw the Manifesto recall a single convention of the Workwhen they violate the law by murdering and beating from the Workmen Circle and to join, in groups and men Circle in the last ten years in which these enthese labor fighters. For many of them it will be the individually, the Independent Workmen Circle. The dorsements and donations were not given? The only first lesson in the capitalist class nature of the Ameri decision to split was, of course, initiated by the present thing that is new iş hat the Right wing will now have can government, its officials, and even its highly leaders of the Communist Party, and it marks the an absolutely free hand to endorse and donate to the praised judicial institutions. But, on the other hand, temporary conclusion of the long, bitter struggle of socialists without there being the tiniest voice of Left the decisions will undoubtedly have the effect of increas Communist and Left wing workers to gain dominant wing protest in the organization or a single branch to ing the terror against the workers, and especially influence and control of this big fraternal order. Un balance off this support to the politically bankrupt against those militants who stand out as the most ac fortunately, it also marks another blunder of the Stal by moral and financial support to the Communist tive fighters for the union. The arrogance and brutal inist Party leadership. And finally, it marks a vic movement.
ity of the bosses and their armed agents will grow as tory for comrade Costrell, who advocated the policy The has not supported any of the big never before. The courts have given them a free hand of splitting for many years, was firmly turned strikes of recent times, particularly those led by the. and what are courts for if not for that to beat, down by the Party for just as many years. Hc Left wing. This news is at least three years old.
maim and murder any worker whose activity displeases can now feel consoled at the thought that his despised And it is only partly true. The reactionary officialthe mill owners.
and bespattered ideas have finally been canonized by dom did not support these strikes. But the Left wing The bosses will undoubtedly succeed in intimidating the new Party leadership.
and progressive branches and members did support many of the workers. But their success will be in in The Workmen Circle, an organization of some them. This reason is a condemnation of the verse proportion to the success of the National Textile 75, 000 members, predominantly Jewish workers, has leaders, and a good reason for continuing to fight Union in organizin a sufficiently broad move been constantly under the control of a crude Right them for the control of the membership and the organment in the South to form a protecting ring around wing Socialist Party clique. Under the guidance of ization. As a reason for withdrawing from the organevery worker that can resist the disciples of Judge the Communist Party, it was the policy of the Left ization, however, it is worthy of people who have lost Lynch. The has an enormous advantage wing and the progressives up to now to carry on their their heads or never had any.
in this respect, since no matter how sharp is the threat work and agitation inside the organization in spite of The supports the counter revolution in of the lynching terror, the frightful exploitation of the difficulties, expulsions and persecution to which Russia. splendid reason for withdrawing but the mill slaves is still sharper and will find expression they were subjected. few years ago, when scores just as good in 1922, because the Toronto convention in strikes of the most desperate kind.
of Left wing members and branches were being ex of that year adopted a position which the Left wing But broad movements do not arise from good wishes pelled and their rights violated by the Right wing, an has since then correctly labelled support to the Rusalone. Nor is it sufficient for them to exist only in Alliance of Left Wing Branches was formed; sian counter revolutionary Mensheviks.
about 70 branches which refused to quit the Alliance The fact is that the Party can show nothing new the fabulous reports of inspired Party reporters. The were dissolved by the Right wing. But the Left in the situation to warrant a new policy, except its policy of distortion and easily revealed exaggeration practised by the Daily Worker and Labor Unity is wing carried on such a capable campaign that the re own impatience, its desperation, its straining at quick. and quickly dissipated results, its new narrow, secwrong from any viewpoint, one of which is that reports entry of these dissolved members into the Workmen Circle was successfully negotiated and the work con tarian line, its capitulation before difficulties.
of non existing strength are guaranteed to lead to detinued.
spair and disappointments in the future. The struggle The new policy becomes only more dangerous and Now, virtually out of the clear blue, comes the new fruitless in view of the present status of the Left wing for broad trade union organization requires not only militancy and persistence, but essentially a proper ap lectively and without a moment hesitation. The best policy of the Party to quit the singly and colmovement among the Jewish workers in this country, which makes it imperative for the Left wing to intrench proach and policy of conduct. This has not yet been worked out by the Left Wing, although its urgency, way in which to judge tire correctness of this breath itself even more deeply in the mass organizations of taking reversal of position is to examine the six main the workers. Two or three years ago, when the Left advocated by us for many months, becomes more apreasons given in the Manifesto of the Left wing con wing movement especially in the unions was swiftly parent every day.
ference (Morning Freiheit, 10 14 1929. Since a new The decision of the of convention will bring gaining strength among the Jewish workers, there may policy is being adopted by the Left wing, it is under have been some faint justification for this policy. But this problem to a focal point. It is entirely true that an obligation to show that a new situation has devel precisely now, when the Left wing has been weakened the of is not going South for the purpose of oped in the Circle. Or else, it should honestly admit in the Jewish field by the series of mistakes by the organizing the workers into a strong trade union move to the workers that the Communists were entirely Party, when it is plain to the naked eye that it has lost ment to fight the bosses for better conditions. That is wrong and have been misleading them in these last ground heavily both in the needle trades and in the not the function of the of leadership, and years by insisting that every progressive worker re Workmen Circle, the adoption of the new policy is their record speaks more eloquently of that than a main in the and help to liberate the tens of sheer folly, which will only net the Left wing a series mile of promises. The Gomperses, Greens and Wolls thousands of workers in it from the baneful, reaction of disappointments. The Left wing will succeed in participate in struggle only to head them off into ary influence of the Weinbergs and Baskins. But let drawing a maximum of 2000 2500 members out of the harmless channels, to stamp out every spark of mili us test the validity of the reasons: add them to the approximately 7000 members tancy. They did that in the 1919 steel strike, in a The Workmen Circle, says the Manifesto, is of the Independent, and leave tens of thousands of dozen coal strikes, in previous textile strikes (Passaic) under the black hand of the yellow Foruard. But workers in the Workmen Circle to be misled, misand a thousand other of lesser importance. In recent that is not new. It has been under that deadening educated and mulcted by Baskin, Weinberg and Co.
years, they have promised organization drives in the hand for years, in 1920 and 1925 as well as in 1929. who are as happy as larks that the Left wing is leavautomobile industry, the packinghouses, in the mine The is no longer a workingmen circle. ing them an uncontested field, fields and elsewhere, but nothing materialized. The It is a business men circle. In the there is This is quite clear. It is involuntarily substantiated task of organizing the unorganized millions in this not one class, but two classes the working class and by Melech Epstein, who writes about the bucountry falls upon the shoulders of the Left wing the bourgeoisie. Quite true. There has been and is reaucrats with such violently and fearlessly radical and progressive forces inside and outside the of a small element of petty shopkeepers, real estate sharks phrases that an ordinary, timid soul would never susL. Green and Co. will not do it, and the wreck and and merchants in the Circle who were and are the pect that he absorbed his Bolshevism, before coming ruin of a dozen once powerful unions including the main support of the reactionary officials. But they to the Freiheit a little while ago, from the ultra pious miners union, the most powerful of them all, are a did not come in yesterday. They have been there for atmosphere of the Zionist Jewish Zeit: Without the conclusive answer to those who think otherwise. years. To justify its new policy, the Party must prove Left wingers and progressives, the black forces will In other words, Green enters the South after the that the social composition of the Circle has changed lose the last bit of restraint that they felt upon therLeft wing, and because of the Left wing, and only radically in the most recent period. But no such proof selves. With all their insolent attitude towards their in order to wipe out the Left wing and its union can be brought forward. The Circle is still pre political opponents in the order, the Forward and which has drawn to itself the rising spirit of rebel dominantly working class in its composition.
politicians nevertheless had to conceal their deeds from lion among the Southern workers. Green will do or The the manifesto should say, The of time to time. Now the policy will become as naked ganizing work in the South only so long as the Left ficialdom of the has not supported the workers as Adam. The dictatorship of the Forward will bewing and its union are still a force to be reckoned in a single struggle in the last few years, but the come still tighter and stifling. The dance will become with there. Then he will quit, because if the bosses bosses and the union bureaucrats especially in the still wilder. Morning Freiheit, 10 16 1929. In other prefer an of union to a Left wing union, they needle trades. But that, admittedly, holds true for words, the withdrawal of the Left wing will result in also prefer no union at all to the of the last few years. split for this reason was there the surrender of the remaining tens of thousands of Against the Green will have not only fore just as imperative in 1926 as in 1929. The com workers to the insolence, the stifling dictatorship, the the big financial resources and apparatus of the plaint that Baskin and Co. tax the membership for will dance of the Forward and its kindred. of but the tacit tolerance of the employers. And support to the led by Sigman and Schles There is still an urgent need for the unification of while it may be solacing to some to repeat over and inger is equally invalid as a reason for withdrawal, the two Circles, and for the development and strengthover again that the Southern workers are completely for the Left wing has, quite justifiedly, taxed the cning of the Left wing within the united organization disillusioned about the of and its traitorous membership of branches under its control for the sup until it has won the support of the decisive sections leaders, the unfortunate fact remains that this is very port of Left wing unions and institutions. Will a of the working class membership. Splits which give far indeed from the truth. The of can become Communist leave the reactionary Carpenters Union if such small results as or percent of the membership a tremendous force among the workers to be reckoned Hutcheson imposes a membership tax for, let us say, to the Left wing and the balance to the Right wing are with, and which cannot be met with the ridiculous slo the support of the American Legion? No, he will stay indefensible. There is nothing revolutionary in a policy gan (which we notice has now become an official, stand with the workers and fight against such measures that yields such results.