Saturday, May 3, 1980 THE MILITANT Page In the Party In the Soviet Union The Men Clothing Union The District Is Re organized In the Amalgamated: From Class Struggle to Class Collaboration Stalin Assassinates Two More!
It is not a matter of principle that wish to take up here, nor is it a question of policy in the class struggle. It seems that even in the simplest matters, in the most practical question the Party leadership has developed blunders and Incapacity to a science.
Tuesday morning, April 22, found a letter in my mail saying: In line with the plan and decision of the Section Committee and the District Committee, the readjustment of the Section has been finally completed. It goes on further to say what new unit was assigned to, and that should appear for a meeting that evening, in a new place. This is the manner in which the reorganization of one of the largest sections of th Party was achieved. No previous discusion by the members, no explanation on the basis upon which this reorganization has taken place. Everything was decided upon and carried out by the Section and District committees. Naturally, the result was confusion.
Out of over 30 comrades assigned to my unit, half a dozen showed up to the meeting In one place the letter ways: system of revolutionary competition will be immediately Instituted between units in relation to the stabilization of the unit, election of proper functionaries and the concentration on shops and factories, etc.
Try and stabilize when the comrades walk Around like sheep that have been lost from the flock, wondering where they belong To quote once more from the same letter. If you meet comrade who did not receive a letter and does not know where his unit meets, take him to your unit meeting. and the Section representative will check up.
Eventually the lost sheep will perhaps find their flock. But this stunt was pulled exactly two weeks before May Day when every nerve of the Party is to be strained for in mobllizing the maximum number of workers, and a section of about 500 work.
erg remains virtually disorganized and impotent to effectively work for the demonstration.
One gets the impression that there are master minds at the head of the Party constantly planning confusion and blunders In big matters as well as small one.
If this be true, they are succeeding marvelously. Little Purification PITTSBURGH Charges have been brought in the Communist Party here against John Kaspar and Gartigel, and it is said, against John Otis as well. The charges are that they all attended the unemployment convention in New York without the authority of the Party. But that charge only conceals the real reason. The main reaBon is that Kaspar, as an organizer for the criticized the bureaucrats Devine and Saltzman so sharply that they could stand it no longer. Kaspar organized the campaign for the food workers, but the Party officials never assisted him. Kaspar would organize street meetings, but the bureaucrats never went out to speak. Kaspar did as best he could for the cab strikers but the Party officers would say one day that they had ideological control of the strikers and the next day: If they won accept our program, to hell with them.
All these crimes brought about the suspension of Kaspar from the Party for a certain time and with him, Garfigel. JAMES SIFAKIS Prior to the formation of the Amal Amalgamated Clothing Workers of Amergamated Clothing Workers of America, the ica.
United Garment Workers, afflllated with the MOSCOW The new organization was based upon American Federation of Labor, claimed Jur.
the class struggle and militancy of a forward to you the information isdiction over the colthing workers in the high order as the preamble of the adop received from new comrade an United States and Canada. Nominally, the ted constitution vividly attests. It set rived from Moscow. He was arrested organization is still in existence, but is forth its principles in the following rev among the 150 (in reality another bun.
dred should be added to this figure. Two no longer a factor either in industry or in olutionary words: the labor movement for the simple reason The economic organization of la from his group were sent to the realm of that it has falled to organize the clothing bor has been called into existence by the Pluto. The names of these comrades are: workers in the United States and Canada. capitalist system of production, under Rabinovich and Silov. The mood of the which the division between the ruling workers, according to him, is that of waitThe Betrayal of the and the ruled class is based upon the ing. In the city of Serpuchov there were In 1913 the clothing workers in New ownership of the means of production. disturbances in a textile factory as a York decided to strike against their intol The class owning those means is the result of which the workers got a raise in erable conditions. Over fifty thousand tail one that is ruling, the class that posses. the price list on some items, instead of a ers, mostly unorganized joined ranks with ses nothing but its labor power is the cut.
Partyites also particpated in the the handful of radicals who initiated the one that is being ruled. disturbances.
movement. The strikers stood solid in constant and unceasing struggle It is clear that he is talking about the spite of terrorism by the police, hired is being waged between these two shooting of two Oppositionists. This is gunmen and the sabotage on the part of classes.
quite possible. At first there were expulthe national officers. The storm came when It further states sions from the Party, then exile follows, the president of the Tom Rickert. The workers must accept the prin then jall, then the beating up in the Charwithouthe knowledge of the strikers, made ciple of industrial unionism or be kov and Ural Jails then the murder of Bua settlement which the workers and local doomed to impotence.
toy through hunger, then the accidental leaders refused to accept. They claimed The 1914 convention was the most murder (by beating up) of Haenrichson he gold them out. Influential people in outstanding in the history of the clothing in Leningrad Why should it be imthe labor movement intervened and a com workers in the United States and Canada. possible that they are beginning to send promise settlement was reached. The work Radicals, revolutionists of all shades of Oppositionists into the other wo:1d? The ers won some of their demands and went opinion united and supported the new Amal shakier the ground under the Centrist teet back to work. They bullt up strong local gamated union. new spirit and Idealism becomes the more bestial they become.
unions against the wishes of the reaction was brought into the organization. Every Autumn flies sting painfully.
ary officialdom.
industrial center, large or small, asked for Stalin last speech on Dizziness from in 1914 the held its conven organizers and help from the new organiza Success is undoubtedly symptomatic. It tion.
This city tion in Nashville, Tennessee.
seems to me that turning to the Right WAS chosen although it was not a clothing The Early Successes With conditions favorable for organ(when this turn will begin) the Centrista center and was very remote from one. The will attempt to throw upon our shoulders General Officers did this purposely because ization among the clothing workers, the all their ultra Left crimes, as it happened they knew the tailors had no money to leaders started a campaign in every in In 1928 with the extraordinary measures.
send a full delegation. Consequently, the dustrial center and made rapid headway. After all the press is in their hands. That officers figured to control a majority in Thus we see in 1915 a big strike in New 19 why it is necessary to give a timely the convention and re elect themselves into York which improved the conditions of the warning to the working class about our reoffice. But the local unions did send their workers. The ame year a strike of 30, 000 lation to the Centrist inanities not only full delegations and they were not seated.
workers was called. In Chicago. This was abroad (there it is much easier. but here The delegates who were allowed to take one of the bitterest struggles waged by too. For that it is necessary to hurry up the new union and lasted from September their seats were mostly women from over1915 to January 1916. Two workers were with a declaration to the Party and to the all locals. paper locals which the genkilled during this strike and 200 arrests working class. We must by no means eral officers had then and still have at their were made. The demands of the strikere hesitate.
mercy by means of the union label.
were a 48 hour week, 25 percent wage The delegates who were barred from Increase, and recognition of the union. AlThe murder of Blumkin was only a the convention by the general officers, and beginning.
though the strike was lost through the also some of the insurgents who had been We are informed about the seated held their own convention in anscabbing of the old reactionary shooting of two more Oppositionists: the other hall in the same city. They elected with the aid of the police, yet it laid the comrades Silov and Rabinovich. Evidently the idiotio invention about the participation their general officers and general execfoundation and maintained organization. As of Oppositionists in rallroad sabotage was utive board with a complete machinery a result of this struggle the employers in Chicago signed agreement in 1919 with made with the idea of explaining away the for the work of the organization. Their acthe malgamated without a strike. This tion was quickly ratified by the rank and Thermidorian crimes against the Bolshevikshows that strikes are a good weapon and Leninists. But comrades Silov and Rabinfile, who immediately began to pay dues not in vain when an organization is sinovitch, had no relation whatever, not only to the new administration in order to supcere and means business, instead of monkey with sabotage. but even with railroade.
ply a Aghting treasury.
business.
The fact that Stalin still covers up the First Victory of the Ilere was the Amalgamated within a shooting of Blumkin, proves that he has short period of five years from 1914 to nothing to say in explanation of the comImmediately upon its assuming office the new administration with Hillman as 1919 fighting battles, winning demands mitted murder. Stallu driving forces and establishing the first 44 hour week in these new crimes, are: personal revenge, President and Schlossberg as General Secfor the clothing workers. It was done and usurpationist alarm, retary, was confronted by a serious industrial confict in Baltimore. Without a not by miracles and appealing to the emThe murders will not not frighten the Opposition about that there is no need treasury, without effective machinery be ployers, but through struggle and sacrifices.
cause of lack of time to establish it, and This brought prestige and respect not only of talking but will not even shake it from from the clothing workers, but from the its path. We have a strict count of the surrounded by odds, the General Executive Board took up the fight. The success employers, and even from enemies within crimes of the Stalinist apparatus. But the or failure of this struggle was a test case the labor movement like the of Party and the apparatus are not one and the This shows wain that reactionaries who same thing. The Party as a whole must for the new organization. In spite of the say you can not organize workers through demand an answer from the Stalinist fracfact that the organization was penniless, in strikes do not know what they are talking tion for its murderous policy. And it will spite o: treachery by the deposed officers, about, or else they want to sit on their soft us in its ranks.
and in spite of the fact that one branch of the industry the cutters betrayed the chairs comfortably and not do the job.
Because of its militancy and strength, tailors and went back to work in spite Message to Siberia of all this the 500 tallors fought bitterthe Amalgamated was the first union to be ly until they won the strike gloriously.
attacked by the open shop campaign in Deep in the Siberian mine, Thus, the first struggle led by the new 1920 and 21. This lock out involved about Keep your patience proud; organization was also its first victory.
60, 000 workers in New York City and about The bitter toll shall not be lost, 15, 000 in Baltimore and Boston. It began The rebel thought unbowed.
This successful struggle was a deadon December 8, 1920 and ended on June 1, ly blow to the old administration, the The sister of Misfortune, Hope, 1921. This lock out was the most bitter of fight of its kind ever waged by any organIn the under darkness dumb, The new administration bad passed ization in the history of the American laSpeaks joyful courage to your heart: through its first line trenches, but it stul bor movement. The employers failed to The day desired will come.
went under the name of the of break the spirit of the workers even with And love and friendship pour to you The following year the courts ruled that the aid of the hired gangsters, and police the old reactionary leadership was enAcross the darkened doors, brutality so they resorted to the courts titled to the name and treasury of the Even as round your galley beds and sued the organization for millions of old, faded organization. The dollars in damages. The of helpMy free music pours.
new organization therefore called a speed the employers in every way they could The heavy hanging chains will fall, cial convention in New York in Decem to destroy the Amalgamated but they failed. The walls will crumble at a word; ber, 1914, and changed its name to the This was the last heroic battle the And Freedom greet you in the light, Amalgamated waged, and since then HillAnd brothers give you back the sword man and his general executive board have tible self criticism (that i3, criticism. PUSIIKIN made peace with the employers.
Translated by only of the rank and Alle and whitewashes of those responsible for all the Max Eastman Others articles on the development of blunders. Nam of correspondents the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of will be withheld whenever requested.
America, and the tasks of the Left wing, The authors of this letter in the For the workers in the Party, the Mil will appear in forthcoming issues of the remote corner did not yet know about the Itant opens columns freely. Ed. Milltant.
shooting of Blumkin.
Note: All Party members are invited to express their viws on the Party situation in the columns of the Militant.
Write us on the conditions in your units, etc. We want to make the Milt.
ant also a forum in which Party menbers will be able to discuss frankly and freely what is wrong with the Party and how it can be remedleddiscussion which is forbidden in the columns of the official Party press. Let the bureaucrats practise their contemp