THEMILITANT Lawrence on Strike!
Published Twice a Month by the Communist League of America (Opposition)
VOL. IV, No. (Whole No. 64)
NEW YORK, MARCH 1, 1931 PRICE CENTS BLUMKIN.
One Year after his Murder Textile Workers Rebel Against Wage Cut and Speed Up System Stalin Acts year ago Stalin had our comrade Blumkin ghot. It is our duty to refresh the memory of the revolutionary workers on this Stalinist crime against the Left wing of the Bolshevik party. The assassination of Blumkin was one of the most cowardly, Definite signs of active workers resis They called the officials of th T. In view of these beginning signs of most perfidious betrayals on the part of tance to the capitalist offensive are here.
Stalin against the entire Leninist party and outsiders. However, that is always so in working class resistance our slogan against In Lawrence, Mass. a total of 10, 000 textile against the working class that is sincerely a strike; workers representatives are casrationalization and speed up assumes real workers have struck the Ainerican Woolen attached to the work of the October revtigated as outsiders.
importance. But above all in general agiCo. mills against an increased speed up tation the slogan of the six hour day witholution.
system and a wage cut. These strikers On Feb. 26th, the employers succeeded out reductions in pay should be put forEver since we received news of the immediately began militant mass picketing. in getting the strikers to take a vote on ward, as a propaganda slogan. It can becrime, we have not ceased to demand of It has thus become one of the early small returning to work granting the concession come the unifying slogan of working class Stalin and of the party bureaucrats the beginnings of a rising labor movement. that there would be no efficiency experts, reasons for which they have destroyed one struggle. It is the main slogan of the risthat the old schedule in force prior to Feb. ing labor movement.
of the most valiant militants of the rev On Feb. 16th, 1931, the strike began olution. Neither Stalin nor his subordinates with only 33 workers coming out of the 16 will be put back into operation and that of the American party have been able to met Washington Mills combing dept. against the a committee of mill workers will give us an explanation to justify this ass instituted new schedules. It became sponto consider any disputes in the future. They assination. More than that, they have not taneous. By Feb. 21st it increased to 8, 000.
refused to grant time and a half for overhad the courage to admit openly, before the Despite the fact that only fragmentary untime. Following immediately upon the votwhole working class, their responsibility for ing the police force raided the ion organization exists the strike continued this action.
union headquarters, arresting 11 workers. Or to grow to embrace 10, 000 workers.
those arrested the following Edith BerkWe pause particularly on this fact because it describes especially well the antiThe new schedules provided for increased man, Pat Devine, William Murdock, John We extract the following from a letter speed up. It instituted wage cuts in the communist and anti Soviet character of the Czarencki and Alex Danilevich are held un of the Russian comrades: form of abolition of all overtime pay and Stalinist repression against the Bolshevikder bail aggregiating 100, 000. Of the 10, 000. mass arrests have been performed Leninists.
abolition of extra pay for night shifts. It strikers only about 2, 000 participated in the in December. The reprisals have been rePhysical repression against the enemies provided for placing of efficiency experts voting, the result of which is announced enforced especially after the wave of proof the Soviets has been and remains the inthroughout the mills to increase the labor as 1, 651 in favor of returning to work and tests evoked by the death of Kote Zinzadze.
disputable right of the proletarian dictatorintensity.
453 against. On the face of it this does For communication with the exterior (roship. This right was loudly proclaimed by The strike involved mainly the three not look like an expression of the workers ceipt or report of short news from or to the Bolsheviks without any of that hypo mills of the American Wool Co. The Washsentiments.
friends) there are arrests or indictments for communication with the foreign countererley which generally accompanies capital ington, Wood and Ayer Mills. The Workers While this strike is entirely of a spon18t repression in the so called democratic demanded time and a half for overtime, revolution. Apart from this, the material taneous and isolated local character its countries. During the most tragic moments double time for holidays, withdrawal of conditions significance lies in it being a beginning of a the deportees are growing of the revolution, the Soviets and the party, efficiency experts, no discrimination and new basic tendency. tendency towards worse and worse and they are all completely led by Lenin and Trotsky, did not hesitate deprived work The deportation camps recognition of the Mill committees to settle working class resistance. It did not have are more isolated than ever. Not only are to severely punish the enemies of the rev special grievances.
any previous preparation enabling it to olution and to take upon themselves full no letters received from other deportees, The employers fear of these signs of acspread on a large scale.
responsibility for their actions. Let us not but the mails do not even deliver letters tual resistance became immediately expresforget that the trial of the Social RevoluIn this fact the present leadership from relatives. For several months there tionists, the most ferocious enemies of the sed in the brutal efforts of the police to has a serious responsibility. For a long has been no news of Rakovsky.
revolution, took place before the eyes of the break up picketing. The Company offered time it has not only criminally neglected During the month of December a whole working class of the entire world and unto restore the old schedules if the workers to build a union in the textile industry but series of deportation colonies has been arwould return. Furthermore, as usually hapder the immediate control of the Russian has by its narrow factional attitude towards rested. According to the incomplete inforOommunist Party. The dictatorship of the pens in such cases the better citizens ralthe working class movement removed one mation received from Central Asia the folproletariat only profited all the more by this lied to the company offering their services after another of officials elected by the unlowing comrades have been arrested. Akiropenness. The confidence the working through an established gitizens committee.
ion, finally substituting for elections the tava, Bogrotov, Japp. Joffee, the wife class in the institutions of the proletarian The small section of the National Tex method of appointing. It permitted a splenof the late Joffee. Kinkadze, Okuddictatorship was increased.
tile Workers Union existing in Lawrence, did movement in the textile industry of the java, Pekler, Proletarsky, Bivzivadze and The correct policy of the Bolshevik took a militant lead in this strike. This South to completely collapse. The net reothers.
party, its internal regime based on work, the employers feared and they refused to sult is a union, in an Industry holding To these new Stalinist reprisals, the ers democracy, the devotion and the sacri deal with these workers representatives. great promises, reduced to almost nothing.
deported and imprisoned Bolshevik Leninfices of its militants, the absolute confidence ists have replied unanimously: No reprisin its leaders were sufficient security for als can suppress us. We remain firm and the proletariat against the abuse of the courageous.
power of repression and a guarantee that Moscow, January 23, 1931.
the sword of the revolution would be used Alarming news has reached us about only against the enemies of the workers Two of our comrades, members of the cerated, while Bill Lawrence, Tess Ryder Victor Serge (a Franco Russian oppositionstate.
Philadelphia branch of the Communist Leaand Anna Lynn are awaiting sentence and ist and the French translator of the works Since the relgn of the bureaucratie regue of America (Opposition) have beun Leon Goodman and Berman Morgenstern of Lenin. Already imprisoned as an opgime of the Stalinist apparatus, things have arrested on charges of sedition and are beare up for trial. The ravages of capitalist changed radically. In the hands of the ing held under 1, 000 bail for distributing justice must not be allowed to go on unpositionist in 1928, Victor Serge has been removed from all work and exposed toirresponsible bureaucrats, the weapon of releaflets in front of a shelter for homeless hampered. The entire revolutionary work gether with his to dire destitution.
pre! against the bourgeoisie and its de men and for calling on the employel and ing class of America must be aroused to Tomorrow, no doubt there will be imposed fenders has become an arm of persecution unemployed workers to demonstrate on In action in defense of their valiant pioneers. deportation upon him also.
against the ideas of the Bolsheviks.
ternational Unemployment Day at the mass Comrades Goodman and Morgenstern, as The repression against communists has To the which had no ite pur meeting of the unemployed City Hall well as the other arrested Communists need nothing in common with the defense of the pose the repression of the class enemy.
Plaza.
Stalin has added another function; that of revolution. It tends to amputate the arm Comrades Goodman and Morgenstern the help of the united forces of the whole communist and Left wing movement in this of the class: the party. It falsifies the suppressing inside the working class and were distributing our unemployment leafits party all that struggle against the burwhole concept of proletarian repression and let. The passage in the leaflet (the Open country, in the fight for their freedom. Thus far, they have been furnished only with an eaucratic degeneration of the proletalan die Committee of delivers material into the hands of the enLetter to the Central the attorney by the Civil Liberties Union. The emies of the revolution.
tatorship.
party) for which they were indicted and local organization of the has been The party must react and cry The working class does not and will not out which the District Attorney termed sediappealed to for help, and we are awaiting aloud: Accept this repression, dictated by the 10 tous, reads as follows: terests of social classes hostile to the proltheir response.
Put a stop to this shameful repression There can be no solution to the unagainst communists!
starlan power. The laboring masses do not employment problem under capitalism. The On Sunday, March 1, an Anti Sedition approve of the terrorist methods which solution can be found only in the Socialist Conference has been called by the Stalin employs against the proletarian rev. revolution and, finally, on a world scale.
in Philadelphia, to organize the struggle olutionaries. That is why Stalin has hidden against the Flynn Sedition Law as part of For calling upon the workers to fight from the working class his crime of Febru against unemployment and for the six hour the struggle against capitalist class justice Capitalist press dispatches from Conary 1930, perpetrated on the person of Blum day, against capitalist rationalization and all over the country. This Anti Sedition stantinople inform us that a fire which kin.
for unemployment insurance paid by the Conference must be made into a real, united swept the house in which comrade Leon The Left Opposition will denounce ev. bosses and their government, for long term front conference in defense of all class war Trotsky and his family were living on the erywhere the Stalinist repression and the credits to the Soviet Union (where unemprisoners, into a real fighting weapon of the Prinkipo in the Sea of Marmora, centrist policy in the name of which this re ployment does not exist) in order to gain working class.
compelled the inhabitants to flee at dawn pression is carried on. The names of Blum employment for more American workers and In these times of deep capitalist crisis and take refuge in nearby hotel. Comrade kin, Zinzadze, Siloft, Rabinovitch and the at the same time to help put through the and growing workers unrest, the savage Trotsky and his wife, comrade Natalia Ivannumerous other victims of the bureaucracy Five Year Plan and lastly, for pointing onslaught of the bosses and their govern ovna, have both been ill, with the former will remain alive in the memory of the rev. out to the workers that unemployment can ment against the liberties and rights of the confined to bed. The united front of Stalin olutionary workers.
be abolished only by the world revolution, workers, as well as against their living and the bourgeois government of Europe our two comrades have been snatched up standards, can be repulsed only by the com has hitherto prevented Trotsky from obtain COMMUNISTS AND PROGRESSIVES by capitalist class justice. Together with bined efforts of the entire working class, ing the urgently needed medical aid. The This subject, which has become especially scores and hundreds of other courageous by the fighting unity of its revolutionary fire, whose origin is not yet known, deimportant with the recent development of working class militants they are threatened vanguard. Only a broad united front of stroyed a number of valuable historical the will be discussed at the with imprisonment and with isolation from struggle, composed of all elements fighting documents, including many manuscripts lecture by James Cannon, on Saturday their class brothers in struggle.
capitalist justice on a revolutionary class which had not yet been published anywhere.
evening, p March 7, 1931, at the Labor Under the outrageous Flynn Sedition hesis can save Goodman and Morgonsterp. The extent of the destruction done by the Temple, 14th St. and 2nd Avenue. Auspices. Law of the state of Pennsylvania the Com Peltz, Holmes, Lawrence, Ryder and Lynn fire as to that we are not yet able to say.
New York Branch Communist League of munist fighters Peltz, Holmes, Resetar, and the others from the fangs of the bosses We are awaiting further and more reliable America (Opposition. Muselin and Zima have already been incar and their government news, Two Philly Oppositionists Held for Sedition Fire Destroys Trotsky Home island