THE YOUNG VANGUARD The Misery of India Communist Youth and the Left Opposition BIGGER AND Youthful Toilers BETTER WARS of the organizations in the Communist Youth membership into its ranks. The International, none have suffered and con. young workers of Austria remain under 80.
It would be ridiculous to expect from tinue to suffer such mangling as the Young cial democratic influence while the Comthe British (and their Junior partners, the Communist International. With a splen munist infuence is almost nil. The Amerdid background the struggle of the Youth ican League continues to remain at a statnative) ruling classes that have made of against the war in unison and under the India a huge welter of poverty, pestilence, ic membership of between 1, 000 and 500 political guidance of the Bolsheviks, the members. Here the fruits of the Lovesuperstition and ignorance anything but Russian Revolution, and the splendid lead stone leadership and the present incomthe most callous treatment of the young ership of comrades Lenin and Trotsky dur.
toilers in field and factory. But even we, petent, pretentious and impotent leadering the early days of the organization of none too pampered by Hooverian propership of Steuben, Green and Harvey have the Communist International the made matters only worse. of the Amer.
ity were deeply shocked to read of the terwas destined to enjoy a healthy growth ican League more will be said in other arrible conditions the young workers and and activity ticles. And so on ad infinitum.
peasants are forced to live and work under.
Education and participation in mass The invention of the spurious third Speaking generally, an idea can be activity these were the watch words of the period theory and the rise of adventurism gained by noting the fact that infant morYouth Leagues. Progress was inevitable. in political policy has only made matters ality reaches the rate of 206 per thousand The Leagues everywhere enjoyed considerworse. It has added greatly to the already all over the peninsula as compared with able growth. They embodied a revoluachieved sectarianism and isolation. The 91 in the United Kingdom. In the textile tionary enthusiasm and energy that gave present policies of the and its city of Bombay this reaches the sickening rise to splendid activity. The education Leagues only promise to perfect this contotal of 667 on the average and 828 in the in Communism and the participation in the dition.
workers centers. Behind these figures can class struggles prepared hundreds and thoube glimpsed the terrible poverty, poor This situation in the Youth movement sands of young revolutionaries for future housing and poor food that grips the neis but a reflection of the situation in the leadership in the ranks of the Party.
Communist International. The past seven tion, the five acres of land that compromise This ascent however, in the ranks of the average holding, causing the terrible years history of the Comintern is mirrored the Young Communist International was holocausts that sweep the country in the halted abruptly.
in the Leagues, though at times even more In preparation of the shape of epidemics and pestilencee.
struggle against the Russian Opposition grotesque and more accentuated. The soThe margin between bare existence under the leadership of comrades Trotsky, lution of the present crisis in the Interand non existence is 80 slight that the national Youth movement can come about Rakovsky, etc. the Stalinist bureaucracy child, when barely able to balance itself only through a solution of the problems aimed heavy fire against the Youth Intermust go into the field to work. School is national.
The Youth International was facing the Communist International. The out of the question even if such facilities struggle of the Opposition against the premile a mere appendage to the Rightwere present. The British Empire, that Center bloc. Made to think that the youth sent revisionism, adventurism and opporcarrier of enlightenment, does not deem it tunism alone will solve this crisis.
alone were the leaders in the struggle for reDecessary to spend more than 11 pence per correct political lines in the ranks of the surgence and reeducation is necessary head in India for education (local, district, revolutionary movement, the theory of on the basis of a correct political program.
national and from the empire) as against vanguardism once again made its way That program is the platform of the Opthe two pounds spent in the British Isles position. Participation in the ranks of the in the Youth International. From this thewhich has none too a high standard.
ory grew a negative attitude toward the Opposition and common struggle together with the Party comrades is an imperative When Prince Albert Victor (the royal education of the Youth and their partictask of the Youth. The bureaucratic Stalgentleman on the ting of tobacco) who was ipation in mass activity. In place of a the grandson of Queen Victoria visited training for the future, the international inist leadership cannot bring about a rev.
itallizing of the International Youth movePoona in 1882, the following doggerel leagues entered a stage of heated participment. That task belongs to the Opposition.
greeted him: ation in high politics and into an un Tell grandma we are a happy nation, precedented period of factionalism. There in the solution of the present crisis in the But 19 crore are without education. developed in the ranks of the youth cynieCommunist movement the Youth will play no little role. ALBERT GLOTZER ism for the elementary tasks of organiza. crore is 10, 000, 000.
tion.
or the 269 millions in India today but Beginning with the period of 1923 24 a Lovestone «Americanism 22 million know an Alphabet. The huge state of passivity, opportunism and stagnation set in. Bureaucratic direction dirprofits, the great taxation, the usury 18 Continued from Page placed the education of the Youth. Mass returnd in no form whatever to the masses activity was shunted for an accelerated the Opposition held by all its adherenta of India.
condition of factionalism. The scandalous fro Russia to America. That the danger Il the conditions of the ryots (pea.
maltreatment of the Young Communist Inof the Thermidor is being augmented in Bants) are bad, they are infinitely above ternational left horrible gaps in its ranks.
the persecution, exiling and shooting of those of the factory workers. In 1926 there The Russian League alone withstood the Oppositionists, in the breaking of the alwere 1, 500, 00 factory workers of whom heavy decline of its organization.
liance between the workers and peasants 250 were women and 70, 000 are children In Germany the social democratic and because of adventurist policies in indus.
below 15 years of age. These figures are Reformist youth gained heavily at the extrialization and collectivization; in the factory popuation of 2, 650, 000 with the pense of the Young Communist League. In growing of the power of the Kulak and the percentage of women and children doubtFrance the League lost 12, 000 members and Nepmen due to Stalin zigzag policies; in less holding their own it not actually gain.
has today a membership of only 3, 000. The the ominous growth of the Thermidorian Ing.
opportunist policy of the Right Centrist bureaucrcy in the Party and the governTextile is the chief industry in India. leadership was not without its effect on the ment only a Herberg can deny while he Nowhere has King Cotton been a benevo British League. There with the splendid shuts his eyes and shouts don talk to us lent monarch; his history is one of blood, situation caused through the split in the about Socialism in one country, we want particularly of women and children whe Guild of Youth (Social Democratic) and to hear about American questions.
ther in England in 1844, in Gastonia or in the General Strike, the League numbers Covering Lovestone Misdeeds India from 1919 on.
only a few hundred (even Bulky Bill Rust The most interesting part of the meet.
Read the section of Marx Capital deal cannot count more. In Sweden the Righting was Herberg answer to the question Ing with conditions in the spinning mills wing split carried more than half of the of Lovestone use of underworld tactics darken the picture and an idea is gleaned in the fight against the Left Opposition of the conditions of the mill cities of India seems hardly likely the conditions in the And the challenge to debate with us on today.
British owned mills challenge worsening. fundamental questions. Complacently Her.
There is a total of 374, 380 workers in In the Jute mills of Calcutta and Ben berg repudiated the violence perpetrated cotton industry of India of whom 70, 000 gal, where most of the fute in the world against the Opposition by the Lovestone are women and over 15 thousand are child. is produced the average wage for children group with the naive remark at that time ren.
is pence per day. In 319, 000 workers in we were under Stalinist infiuence. Even Wages in the Cotton Industry by Days 76 jute mills investigated 50, 000 were wo it any weight could be attached to this Adults men an. 29, 000 children.
remark, Lovestone will have to explain Rupee Anna Pies And so it is in the entire country. On the away their burglary of the Party office Abmedabad 5 plantations of Assam hundreds of thou and his own tacit sllence while BlumBombay 5 sands of farm laborers, entire families inkin was shot and thousands of OppositionSholapur 15 11 cluding babes toil for a few pence per day. ists are criminally persecuted and exiled Other Centers 1 Fabled spices of India!
to Siberia. We are still waiting for LoveWomen and children even dig coal in stone to raise a voice against the exlling Big Lads and children India, bringing coal to the surface in bag. of Trotsky.
Ahmedabad 11 Bombay 11 kets human beings are cheaper than hoist. Not less demagogic and cowardly was Sholapur ing machinery. or the 250, 000 miners, 1 Herberg reply to the challenge of a deOther Centers 11 thousand are women and a similar num bate on fundamental issues. No! Herberg ber children, won debate with us because, 1st, we are too As for social legislation for children small; secondly because the questions we rupee is about 32, cents. An anna and youth, the little that has been forced want to debate about don interest the te one sixteenth of a rupee or cents and through is flagrantly disregarded. Twelve American workers. The great Lovestone, ples is one twelfth of an anna or about years is the minimum age at which child the overwhelming majority of the Amerone sixth of a cent.
ren are permitted to work in factorley em. can Partly refuses to debate with us beThese wages allow the workers a diet ploying more than 10 workers and us. cause we are too insignificant. Only yeson par with that of a Bombay criminal ing motive power. Between the age of 12 tterday Lovestone strained every muscles to prisoner, a chawl (venement room) each and 15 half time is allowed or 30 hours prove to a recalcitrant minority that Trot.
chawl containing on the average persong. per week.
skyism was the main danger in the Amer.
It is said that conditions in the mills far different side of the story is ican Party. Not quite so distant as that owned by native cipitalists are worse than the profits ot 200 and 300. It was a bad Lovestone shouted to the wide world that La those owned by the Britishers. Al year when only 125 was secured ou the Ideas of Trotskyism has captured the though this comes from reliable sources it capital investment. CURTISS We would surgeat to Herberg to Thursday, May 24, a Rochester audience seated themselves in a vaudeville house to be treated to an unexpected view of the latest scientific marvel, televisionthe combination of radio and vision.
One mile away, in the laboratories of the General Electric Company, artists sang and spoke, a director led the orchestra which was in the theatre, all clearly visible on the screen.
The next morning every thinking per.
son was deeply thrilled as he read the account. This feeling, however, turned into one of abhorrence when he or she read the statement of the developer of the television, Mr. Alexandersson.
Mr. Alexandersson spoke of the latest discovery as being inspiring. OL the uses to which this new invention could be put, he said. Or what will this mean in the future when a staff officer can see the enemy through the television eyes of his scouting plane or when they can send a bombing plane without a man on board which can see the target and be steered by radio up to the moment it hits?
You question, Mr. Alexandersson, what it means. Let us tell you: It means that the next war (in the officg in spite of, or more truthully, because of, your master class peace and disarmament conferences) will make of the last war child play; that where young workers and farmers were killed singly now they will be slaughtered by the droves for the bosses greater pronts. It means that all your vaunting of scientific progress is a terrible taunt; it means that capitalisma is rapidly approaching its doom either barbarism or Communism:either capitalism will scientifically poison, gas, drown, tear and otherwise efficiently kill the toilers and drag society back into the abyss of barbarism or the proletariat will heze power and society will advance into the next stage, Communism, where man wisdom will not be used to discover more rationalized methods of killing each other but to provide more leisure, more of the better things of life to the masses.
That is what it means!
Capitalism is here shown in its stark, hideous reality. Its path of glory leads but to its grave. And that path is rapidly nearing its end. Every such new discov.
ery but adds velocity to this journey.
Mr. Alexandersson is the guest of the Navy on the airplane carrier, Saratoga, bound for Panama, to experiment with the pilotless piane.
recall these trifles before he terms us in.
sigoibcant to debate with.
Evading Questions of Principle But Just like the whole Lovestone crew, no sooner does Herberg say this than he starts to retract it. Well, the reason they didn want to debate, according to Herberg is because the questions we raise (Socialism in One Country, Chinese Rev.
volution Anglo Russian Committee, etc. hold no interest for the American workers. When Lovestone was in good graces with Stalin, when he rau the Daily Worker, when we had no press, before we could print any of the suppressed literature, then it was time to scatter scandal, lles and calutoies about us. Now, when we are in a position to reply to his lles and expose his opportunism, Lovestone hides himself in a dark corner and fearfully cries out. The American workers are not interested in the Chinese Revolution. Whom does this remind us of? Haven we heard somewhere before this same alibi about the American workers not being interested in fundamental problems but in more immediate and more pressing questions. Doesn the carefully avoid the questions of internationallion, the Proletarian Dictat.
orship, etc. with just such platitudes?
But the Opposition is not afraid to de.
bate with Lovestone on American queg.
vions; not afraid to show Lovestone, Her.
berg and Co. how the question of social.
ism in one country once helped Lovestone get control of the American party and re.
duce it to 000 and how this question has brought the Partly to its disastrous state today and how it will help bring worse results even with Lovestone kind in pow.
er in the future to the American Party. GEORGE CLARICE