Saturday, July 12, 1930 THB MILITANT Page 7 Review and Criticisme India Southern conditions, but several comrades with Beal did excellent work under the circumstances.
The Communists in the South bu leading committee was committed Browder vs. Luhani By HUGO OEHLER The drive in the South, start In the beginning of our Southern work, ing in 1929 at the very inception of the before our forces were sent South the con new turn in the Com. nunist Party has not dition of the Gastonia area was in a state yet been analyzed. Our articles on the of tension without important open class South have dealt with tasks and later with confiicts. This period was a culminating Bhortcomir. gs and sell criticism but none point in the transformation of the new have followed this to a logical conclusion industrial South, dominating old forms of and explained the basic causes of these control and changing the hill people into shortcominga. With the majori of the machine automatons on a large scale.
American workers inorganized, the buildEspecially in the Textile section of the ing of new unions is on the order of the Southern indus ries was there a critical day but this is not separate and apart stage. steady Southward shift of the from our work in reactionary unio. to cotton spinning section and an acute inunite the broadest forces possible against ternational textile crisis, accelerated comthe abor fakers, reformists and sectarians.
petition between the North and the South.
Such a correct relationship of these forces On the other hand modern mllls with mato expose the reactionaries e: isted in sevchines of enormous output had to be kept eral of our past campaigns as exemplified moving if the rate of profit was to be kept by Passaic and the Colorado coal strikes, up. These contradictory forces resulted both cases isolating the fakers and in intensifying the stretch out system, in gaining trade union support. In the Creu wage reductions, worse company town concase the gain was nationally for the Comditions and general lowering of the stanmunist leadership and in the second case dard of living with wide spread unemploymainly in Colorado and Wyoming by Comment, pellagra and chain gan, victims.
minist forces for the leadership.
Men, women and children of American born Only by the correct disposition of our stock were being given into open revolt forces in the reactionary trade vnions and and organization against these conditions.
the new unions will it be possible for us in this period when the Party should to defeat the treacherons bu. ucrats and bave went forces South the Cannon Foster build our influence in the labor movement. group was fighting to correct the official Let us review the Gastonia struggle and the American Party leadership, who had been southern campaign to find causes of given leadership on a platter by the Stalin.
our mistakes.
Bucharin regime. The Pepper Lovestone in the economic development of capgroup considered tht this industrialization was to create a reservoir of reaction and italist society ever so often culminating that no work could be carried on now.
points are reached when the paychological The was the first to clamor for reaction of the workers to those changes the new line chat was soon to follow in making for greater oppression one orm the international movement but instead of or the other are transformed into class a correction of the Right mistakes in reIdeology of a rudimentary nature. This lation to our trade union work and the change due to the material transformation United Front tactics a mechanical swing can he accelerated and definite organizato the Left was token.
tronul results obtained providing the vanAfter months of fooling away time guard of the workers, the Communist Party comrade Beal was sent South in February 1s able to apply tactice and strategy based on a Marxian program for the concrete sit1929 inadequately supported one way or the other. In fact from that period up until ustion to crystallize the developing Ideolthe October 13th conference and today the ogy to an organized class consciousness, decisive voting raj rity at the Center of he stage of economie transformation the Communist Party did not know what it in the West when the continued the was all about and was often a brake intraditions of the Western Federation, where stead of a help. The mechanical shift at the vanguard applied tactics with consider the top in these hectic days for the loveable success giving them a crystallizing of stonetes was no remedy, because such is this changing ideology and an organiza never a remedy for anyth. ag except burtional base. The transformation in the eaucratic consolidation. Beal glowing reSouth in the last several vear is similar ports of what really could be done in the to the change the West in the period South and the activity opened the Spoken of, except (to our advantage) we are eyes of more forces at the Center, some in a different stage of historical develop to reality but most of them to the possibment. In the West at that period the ities of dashing spectacular victories.
vanguard was able to crganize a considerMore forces were sent South and the able base but ap to the present the van pivot point of activity was properly selectguard has yet to accomplish this first task ed as Gastonia, the cotton spinning center in the South with the Loray Mill as the pace setter. review of our activity in the South This pre strike stake with the intense acwill throw light upon our success and failtivity of a small force was entirely new to ure that we may not repeat these blunder again. To begin with we must point out that our Southern campaign up to the present can register the following positive points: We have brought for the first time in this section, the class issue into the June 28, 1930 struggle to advancing the workers con To the District Committee of Dist.
Communist Party of the A: Through our Gastonia Campaign The deep going economic crisis, the (only considering the Southern end of the growing army of the unemployed millions campaign) we have agitationally though the renewed attacks on the living standarde not organizationally, gained the wide supof the workers, prompts the capitalist export of American born workers and cropploiters of this country to initiate a ruthper farmers to our broad struggle in spite less drive against the Communist movement of the rabid Anti Red campaign of the as the spear head and most militant secsee: tion of the entire American labor move We have prven agitationally to ment. The activity of the Fish Committee wide section of the Negro magses, South to investigate Communist plotting foreern and Northern, that the Communists shadows a stage of wholesale persecution are the leaders in the struggle of the Neg. of the Communists, of Jailings and deportro masses.
ations of revolutionaries. At such a cru4. To a fair degree we consolidated cial time the Left (Communist) Opposition the unity of black and white workers at deems it more imperative than ever that the each step of the struggle and were con enemies of the working class the capitalsequently considered by these workers as ists and their social democratic and labor the best fighters and known to the bosses bureaucrat lackeys should be contronted and their henchman as the worse. by united Communist ranks.
emles.
Regardless of the fact that the present Since revolutionists don need self factional and Centrist Party regime falsely pra! se (nor the present official Party cam and stupidly slanders us as counter reypatrof mechanical self criticism) we will olutionaries and renegades and wages deal w? the problem of how the class a campaign of hooliganism against us, we is bave been brought into the will never permit them to separate us from the Communist Party and the Communist 10 a rolling. wave theory which in practice relied too much on the spontaneity of the masses and spectacular dramatization and not sufficiently on preliminary organizational activity.
The had already started their second drive since the war in the Southern textile field and were comir. in and taking over revolts of the workers in Elizabethton, Greenville, Lexington, Ware Shoals Marion, etc. trying to get any kind of agreement with the bosses, selling out and leaving if it Lecame too hot as they did in Ware Shoals and other places. The driving force of this campaign were the Musteita! who as a new development at this stage stood in between the reactionaries and the best progressives who in the immediate past had supported the Left wing led by the Communiste.
Our mechanical interpretation of the policy of building new unions and the rejection of the United Front policy as a swing away from the Right blunders of the past in the united front action put a taboo on all kinds of united fronts, if not in words then in deeds.
This resulted in our refusal to utilize thronghout the country all possible forces, so badly needed in that concrete situation, against a powerful enemy that was concentrating all forces against us.
In the Loray Mill, where the National Textile Workers Union was concentrating its forces the company had increased the stretch out and systematically, department by department was reducing the workers wages. Five thousand workers was the full time capacity of the mill. Before the union was ready for the counter attack the Manville Jeneks owners of Loray started discharging union members.
This precipitated the strike and over 2, 500 quit work. This was inopportune for the union, for a little more time would have found them better situated. Mass picketing followed. great number of these workers were in a strike for the first time and were new trade union recunits which meant that more emphasis should have been put on preliminary organization work.
This premature for break could have been overcome by the tried and tested tactic so well used in the Lawrence 1912 strike and many times since. The tactic cf going from department repartment at the inception of the strike in an organized planned manner Strike. Strike! and pulling switches, etc. This was not done.
The failure at the start to close the vill pre determined the tempo of the positive force and choked the fighting spirit of the workers on strike making a breach with those in the plant and enabling ihe bosses to play these two forces against each other to our disadvantage. Naturally, workers in the nearby mills did not gain the necessary inspiration from the strike, especially considering the training of these workers in any kind of class struggles. To Be Continued)
Leadership among the Stalinis section of the Communist movement has become a very specialized function. In the motley collection that serves as the American leadership. the specific function of Earl Browder is to expose the counter revolus tionary renegades. That his anti Trotskyist endeavors are limited structurally to abominable and deliberate falecboods and politically to a vulgar admixture of Les ter Wardism and a hardful of Arxist platitudes is simply traceable to the natural character of the man. The trouble, however, is that he is permitted to infict bis sorry leadership upon the Communist Party.
Latterly. Browder has been firing bie paltry weapons at the Opposition for advocating the slogan of the Constituet Assembly in India (and China) as a democrat.
ic slogan to arouse and coora. the ktruzgles of the masses and lead them to the victory of the proletarian power over the imperialist and nationalist bourgeoisie. In the Dally Worker (June 18, 1935. he writes. The Trotskyites cover up their own surrender to the bourgeoisie in India and China with very Lett phrases about the dictatorship of the proletariat. violent opposition to the slogan democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants. and then practically replace both with the open bourgeois slogan of Constituent Assembly. Our emphasis. Browder remarks on surrender to the bourgeoisie in Inids and China ara of course instructive, and do not come from any mateur. Let us anticipate any criticism from readers on that score by reminding them that he banqueted with General Ti Sin, the butcher of the Canton proletariat, AFTER this bourgeois Kuo Min Tang militarist had decapitated scores of Canton best revolutio fighters. He speaks with authority about surrecder to the bourgeoisie for did he not bring back from China an official letter from the Kno Min Tang expressing its most cordial thanks for the services Browder had rendered it in China.
But so far as the Constituent AssembIy slogan is concerned, it is hard to say whether Browder is ignorant or base, for surely he must know the policy of the socalled Communist Party of India, advocated, so far as we know up until a short time ago. It is stated by no less an authority than Luhani, the Stalinist who eplace Roy and was the Indian Speeialist und spokesman at the Sixth Congress of the Comintern. On the very ere of that Congress, Luhani wrote. Finally, the Communist Party of india, as the Party of the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat has put forward the slogan of the convocation of Constituent Assembly for determinid the constitution of India. In putting forward the slogan, the Communist Party of India declares:. The demand should be the convocation by the National Congress of Constituent Assembly which wili be the sun reme organ of the people power and as such settle the question as regar Lite form of government, relation to Britain, eie.
The entire people must participate in the election of the Constituent Asserably. Coinmittees tor the election of the Constituent Assembly should be set up all over the country. Representatives of all the political parties, workers and peasants organizations and all other democratic bodies will sit on these committees. The election campaign must be carried on throughout the country over a period of at least a year. The largest possible section of the population should be drawn into the campaign through mass meetings, demonstrations, strikes, etc. International Press Correspondence, Vol. 8, No. 6, Page 133. The quotations speak for themselves and they speak facts. But we cannot say as much for Browder.
Open Letter to the on the Elections dittons.
International.
As adherents of the principles of Marx and Lenin undiluted by either opportunism or adventurism it 18 our duty at one and the same time to critleize and correct the official Party line in its deviations from Bolshevism, and also to demonstrate our closest solidarity with the Party in the fulfillment of its tasks in the every day class struggle.
In view of these considerations and of the objective political and economie situation in the country, we herewith offer our cooperation in the forthcoming election campaign of the Party to secure signatures to place Communist candidates on the ballot, to supply qualified speakers for the election meetings of the Party and to carry on whatever other election work is assigned to us.
Awaiting your acceptance of our offer, With Communist greetings, The New York Branch of the Communist League ot America (Opposition)
If the number on your wrapper la 51 In our next vumber there will appear a full report and critical evaluation of the Unemployment convention held July 4th Chicago. Do not miss this imber.
then your subscription to the Mutant has expired. Renew immediately in me a vold missing any ones