THE MILITANT Page Saturday, March 8, 1930 YOUNG VANGUARD The Class Character of the Constitution Whither the American League?
Since the close of the World War a to carry on a trade without the assistance Section Devoted to Problems of the Working Class Youth group of new sects has appeared in Amer of a capitalist. The Constitution in those ica, made up of self styled defenders of days served to some extent also thinthe American Constitution. The most fer terests of the bulk of the poulation (with vent of these are the American Security the exception of the slaves) who consisted League, the Koy Men of American, the of small farmers and independest craftsArmy and Navy League, the Constitutional men, or, in th other words, of small property Defense League, and the Ku Klux Klan. owners.
The Enlarged Plenum of the An expression of the Loft danger Even the old corpse of the Sons of the The Exploitation of Labor and the Law found its echo in the recent plenum of the we are told is Vanguardism. But may we American Revolution. not to mention the Now let us see if that holds good toYoung Communist League of the Daughters. has been revived and shouts ask, What is the origin of this tendency?
day. For example, Henry Ford, the outThe New Turn and watchwords were all loudly with the rest.
Who cultivated and nourished it? Who was standing individual capitalist in America talthful. y reproduced according to schedule.
These organizations have to a degree it that always flattered the youth and today, is the reputed owner of an indusUndoubtedly the new zig zag was very welsucceeded in foisting on America a new taught them that they played a special, try werth at least 1, 000, 000, 000. Is this come to Rijack, Harvey and Green. It saved religion in which the fathers of the revosangtioned role in the struggle against billion dollars the result of Ford o. vn them the embarrassing trouble of really deviations in the Party?
lution are made the saints and the ConWho told the labor? Of course not. It is the result explaining the causes for the disintegrastitution. holy book. Like all religious youth that they were the best interpreters of the labor of hundreds of thousands of tion of the League. The Y, plen fanatics, the makers of the new religion of the Comintern decisions? Who always wage laborers who work for Ford. It provided them in advance with all the are ready to inflict punishments on any.
used the youth as a pawn for every zigis the product of social toil. It is posnecessary explanations. The resolution one who dares to question the truth of zag move on the Centrist chess board? It sible under a private properly system for adopted (Daily Worker, February 8, 1930)
their doctrines. To suggest that the revis exactly that leadership which today cries Ford to exploit these hundreds of thoureveals the miserable situation in which olutionary forefathers were after all only loudly against vanguardism that is ensands of men, or to speak more simply, the finds itself but explains no tirely responsible human beings, with no more power to the growth of such possible for him to legally rob them of by thing, and lays the basis for further decline.
look into the future than we have today a tendency in the It was found far the greater part of what they produce.
There is much self criticism in the. and perhaps with 15 is to bring then to be expedient in the struggle against resolution. Self criticism plays today a comrade Trotsky and the Leninist Oppo down their wrath upon you. They are Ford has, during the last four months, laid on 50, 000 workers, denying them the spesial role in the official Parties and equally ready to condemn any one who sition. But today when dissatisfaction with right to work in the industry which they, Leagues similar to safety valve in a declares that the Constitution is now the course of the present leadership (Shatzsolete; for they are not realistic enough not le, were the builders of Yet the steam boiler. Genuine self criticism could kin Sten) the finds it necessary to never serve the interests of an opportunist struggle against the very tendencies for to recognize that the framers of the Congovernment would back up Mr. Ford when They indulge in self critistiution were not inspired by heaven but he deprives workers of the means whereby bureaucracy.
which it was responsible, and which it nurthey live. According to the Constitution, cism in order to forestall criticism from only by the social and economic conditions tured.
of the time in which they lived, it is his factory, not theirs. Suppose that below. The bureaucracy use self criticism The and American League Not content with practicing their finthe Ford workers should demand that he as the bourgeois liberals view free speech plenums were important in that it foreSo to relieve the internal fermentation, go religion by themselves, these holy cru turn over the plant to them. Ford would shadows the new turn that is to follow saders have done and are doing their best stand on the right given him by the Conthey confess their sins, and the memberin the and its sections, The new to instill into the American workers a stitution which says: No person shall ship feels that a new clean revolutionary turn stated in the resolutions as the need worship of the past and a fear of ques be. deprived of. life, liberty or property atmosphere surrounds them. In realit the to struggle against the Left Danger is tioning the American institutions, new atmosphere is a most congenial place Liko without due process of the law. Nor a forerunner of the beginning of the new the early Christians the American workers shall private property be taken for public for committing new errors.
wave of repressions and persecutions against are ready to suffer rather than reagon uso without just compensation. And the The struggle of the young workers the Leninist Opposition. It foreshadows out whether or not these institutions hayarmed forces of the state would protect were often allowed to pass unobserved, and the adoption again of a Right course by ing their foundation in the Constitution him in that right.
when we did participate in these strugthe Stalinist Center, The excuse of the serve their interests or not.
gles we too often falled to give indepenBut what about the right of the 50, 00 League, that the need of a struggle against As a matter of fact, the evidence is workers to lite, liberty and the right to dent leadership or to develop the necesthe Left is the result of sectarian iso on the negative side. Tako, for example, work. which is the only sary new forms of struggle (New York, property or lation, is just an excuse. The cause of private property and the protection of wage slaves? Well, the Constitution and Boston, Kansa City, etc. and to build the rectarian isolation is the result of the the league. Really a most remarkable the individual, comparing conditions to the state laws have nothing to do with adventurist and recent ultra Left course of day with those of 150 ago. At that that. Property rights come first, and that ieadership and a most remarkable stat of the International, arising from the spurious affairs in the League. The sil. nce with holds good throughout the nation. Why?
time, most property in Acmrica was tho theory of the third period. In this new result of individual labor. America was Because, though an industrial revolution which such a statement (which reveals turn the League will once again be the primarily an agricultural country, with took place in America, and we have paralysis and impotence) is received in the best interpeters of the Comintern doci an abundance of virgin land.
League, is a sign that the process of disVery little changed from an agricultural country to sions, and struggle against the Left decapital was necessary to establish a man an industrial, from individual production integration and demoralization is very far viations and prepare with the Party the independence: Almost anyone was able to to social, yet we are still bound hand and advanced.
swing to the Right. Such is the honorable In the Third Period it is necessary get lan, and clear it for cultivation. After a foot by a document written in a pre ladusrote that the Young Communist Leagues, the few years of labor, he would be the trial era. Today a small minority own to exaggerate without limit (in order to world over, are fated to play under the owner of property that WAS the nearly all the land, the raw material, and conceal the very increasing bankruptcy of regime of the Centrist bureaucracy.
result of his the present leadership. The third period Own toil. the industries, while the greater part of GEORGE RAY must be confirmed at all costs, Facts are man with a few simple tools was able the population are propertyless (proletarians. But we have failed to change no longer of any importance; so think our institutions to meet the changed ecour youth leadera. Thus the economic onomic conditions.
move to the Left at an extremely rapid Abolish Capitalism pace (so. This growing activity on the new feature in the militarization of preparation of war. The struggle against To speak of we. however, is to be part of the young workers finds expressions the American youth is taking place in inexact.
war and militarization must be made a The nation is made up of those in the ever increasing number of youth New York. This act, in face of the recent of these who own and those who work.
strikes.
mass movement of protest and struggle. To Of course in the third period London Conference, and all other peace two great classes, one, the minority, nameeffectively carry out such a struggle, only it isn necessary to montion just in what and disarmament negotiations, belios the ly, the propertied class, still derive benthe Communist and class conscious workerg industries these youth strikes are to be efit from the existing order. It would be observed or to name any of them. Only attempts of this government to appear as a leading the mass of workers can be relied promoter of peace. bill has been intro upon.
those who are still lagging behind someIt demands effective organization futile to expect them to bring about a duced into the New York State Legislature change in the social system of America.
where in the second period want to have and propaganda a feature that is entirely calling for the conscription of all students That can only be done by the other class, Lacking in the revolutionary movement in exact and accurate information on these the property less ones, when they waken youth strikes between the ages of 10 and 18 to compul this country.
To determine the extent, to a realization that a national constitusory military training.
the main tendencies, the number involved, The present move on the part of the tion drawn up 150 years ago is now obsolight or basic industries all this seems to To avoid resentment to this open at militarist strata must be viewed as part of lete and must take its place in a museum be of no concern to the marionettes in the tempt at making soldiers of the American the general war manoeuvers, and which as a thing of the past. New institutions leadership the Leagu youth the bill states in its title that it is will be more and more aimed at a war by must instead be created. We, the proletIt anyone is in search for a quotation Instruction in boy scout training and kin the capitalist powers against the Workers ariat of today know far better than did expressing underestimation of social re dred subjects. But even such a covering Republic of the Soviet Union. Pictured in our forefathers, what the social and polit formism, here is one of the cutstanding fails to hide the fact that the aim and pur that light, the fight of the workers must examples: The radicalization of the young pose of this bill is the preparation of canical requirements of today are. We canbe Hinked together with the general strug not let the past stand in our way, nor workers takes away the base of the social non fodder for the coming war. As in all gle against war and the brutal exploitation can we allow a handful of professional reformists among the young workers and forms of military service, the weak and of the capitalist system. The present act patriots and ancestor worshippers to hold while social reformism remains the chief sick are eliminated, and the best physically is a warning to the working class of what back the wheel of progress. The proletideological barrier, which we have to over are allowed the privilege of participation, to expect in the near future. It is a ariat must and will brush all such aside come amongst the young workers, there which in this instant would mean compul forerunner to the further preparation for and write its own constitution and make sion to service.
can be no real growth of reformist youth war thru the attempt at complete militarlIts own history.
organizations but only disintegration, pro The bill if passed would mean that all zation, not only of the working class and. PETER HANSEN viding the Young Communist League plays students, regardless of attendance at pri student youth, but of the whole Industrial its role. Everything here is wrong and vate or public schools would be forced to system of the country. A, muddied. It is false to say that radical wear the uniform, take 30 minutes drill TRADE UNION MEMIERSHIP AT ization takes away the base from the so dally, and special training during the holiSTANDSTILL cial reformists and only politically irre days, and summer vacation periods.
WAGE CUTS IN OIL FIELDS WASHINGTON. Total membership of sponsible people who trifle with the inNeed of Mass Movement LOS ANGELES Drastic job cuts have all trade unions in the United States in terests of the workers would state such The passing of such a bill would nec been made in the southern California oil 1999 was 4, 331, 251, according to a suromary a thing. It is precisely in the period of essarily set a precedent that would unfields, the Los Angeles Times admits in publisher in the latest edition of the mdicalization that social reformism has doubtedly be pursued in other states. At the an inconspicuous item on the financial page, Handbook of American Trade Unions, puball the oppportunities of growth among the present moment only the Teachers Union January has shown a marked decrease in lished by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
working class. This period likewise makes of the State has protested against this employment the open slo paper states. This is somewhat less than the total for for greater opportunities for Communism attempt to exploit the children of the state 1926. During these three years 10 national and makes more fertile the possibilities of and thus keep alive the institution of milorganiations, chiefly dual passed out of exits growth. Who will grow faster, which itarism. That however, is far from sufiRAIL TELEGRAPHERS ADD NEW istence. American Federation of Labor will outstrip the other depends on several cient.
MEMBERS unions report a gain of 126, 430 over their conditions, among which the tactics of the This particular attempt of the state of ST. LOUIS (FP) The Order op Rat. 1926 total. The chiet gains were made in. play an extremely important and New York must be linked with the whole road Telegraphers enrolled 307 new. the construction and public service indu anig not attempt at militarization of the youth in bers in January.
tries.
oleh camerele de Foung home remed The Militarization of the American Youth