For Economic Collaboration with Russia deals term German Communist pe ty, follows tais with a headline Five Year Plan Gives Work To Tens of Thousands of German Workers.
What part was played in this matter by the German Communists? Absolutely none.
The last census figures record more than By SAM GORDON ternational class solidarity with the workers That is not at all. The credit grant has six million workers out of a job. Considerof the Soviet Union. In this popular and come up before the Reichstag for ratificaing the usual disparity experienced in the machinery with which to assure the succoncrete manner of revolutionary propa tion. The ractionary Brüning government, past between the official data and the actual cess of the Five Year Plan.
ganda, supported by facts and by a clear supported by the yellow social democracy, numbers, this means in reality, close to Soviet orders to the United States, even Marxist principle position that recognizes refuses to guarantee the credits in sum, ten million unemployed. 10, 000, 000 workers the international character of the working but purposes on the contrary to take up under the limited credit possibilities of the class movement at all times, unheard of each case without jobs. With their families, additionof credit extension seratim. present, have already given work to thoucondemned that a starvation process al millions are progress can be made in the way of develdelays the shipment sands of American workers, who would diet. Meanwhile, industry still remains clog.
oping the class consciousness of the Ameri of machinery absolutely necessary to otherwise have been thrown into the gutter.
ged up, the crisis keeps on swelling, draw Had it not been for these Russian orders can workers and advancing the class strug. meet the requirements of the Five Year ing more and more branches of production (for machine tools writes the Cleveland gle in the United States as well as in every Plan. But in all this, the Communist party into the jam, and no outlet is in sight. Plain Dealer, many Cleveland factories other capitalist country.
is caught off guard. Opportunities come and Another capitalist country, only recently would have faced a shutdown when go without being utilized, without being uto But what is the official party leadersaid to be going through a period of bemobile orders temporarily stopped. Emship doing in this dire on? Absolutely exploited to revolutionary advantage.
lated capitalist bloom France has enterployment for severat hundred additional men nothing. The aid that the Five Year Plan The Five Year Plan, executed without ed the ban of the world wide depression.
will be furnished. in filling a contract can be in relieving unemployment in the an international revolutionary perspective There too, the unemployment figures are. to recondition thirteen steamers re capitalist countries, finds no ex lanation, and in the well known bureaucratic manner mounting, misery and discontent are growcently acquired by the Soviet government no place in the propaganda of the party of the Stalinist adventurers, has been coning. The world market has shrunk.
around the unemployment problem. Why? siderably endangered in the past.
from the Shipping Board. The last, The One country alone shows signs of busan item from the Boston Herald.
Because such propaganda is in direct con one hundred percent collectivization policy tling economic life. That is the Soviet UnTractor factories, automobile plants.
tradiction to the Stalinist theory of the weakened it greatly on the peasant front, ion. While capitalism is on the down slide, transportation enterprises and all sorts of building up of socialism in one country, The irresponsible excesses on the industrial while list anarchy once more, and to industrial undertakings have been kept going which rejects the close international bonds front, carried out in the name of the Five a far more serious degree than ever beby Soviet orders. group of American busibetween the construction of socialism in Year Plan in three years, inflicted considerfore, upsets the already shaky balance of ness men is even now negotiating with the Russia and the class struggle in the rest able damage in the way of bringing about a the existing social conditions, planned, socU. government for credits to the Soviet of the world. Instead of asking the aid definite and dangerous lagging behind the ialized industry in Soviet Russia advances Union. Their leader, Col. Cooper, the enof the proletariat of the West to obtain program, which the Pravda recently points by leaps and bounds, pointing out the ingineer of the Dnieprostroy Power Station credits Soviet industry. Stalin out under the title: Alarm Signals. There evitable road that world economy must take in Russia, stated in a speech before the Am with the capitalists behind the backs of the is a great shortage in finished goods. The in the future.
erican Russian Chamber of Commerce re workers under the shameful un Marxist material conditions of the workers not and anti revolutionary banner of the peace keeping pace with the rapid strides in indusOn the one side, we have world un cently, that ful cohabitation of capitalism and Com try. The Five Year Plan needs help. Already employment, an expression of the failure It requires but a small amount ot munism. The workers of Europe and Amof the capitalist system. On the other, we the Centrist bureaucracy under Stalin is prestudy from my point of view to visualize erica are not drawn into the concrete every paring to capitulate before the difficulties have the Five Year Plan, an example of the not far distant time when we can be successful socialist construction.
day struggle of the heroic workers of Sov by a Right wing turn in the direction of exporting to Russia at least one billion let Russia. The tasks of the Communists a Neo Nep. All Communists must be on In the capitalist United States, the last dollars per annum.
in the capitalist countries are considered guard against the return to the opportuncensus figures tell us that new millions of And he gave quite substantial reasons Isolated and apart from the tasks in Rus ist swamp and fight against it.
workers have been thrown out of industry. to back up his contention. Yet, even if his sia if they are not held to be altogether The slogan of long term credits to the In Soviet Russia the latest statistics show estimate were a bit optimistic, there can insignificant. International revolutionary Soviet Union must penetrate the broadest that nearly a million new workers have been not be any doubt that the possibilities for action precluded by the narrow un Len layers of workers and unemployed in the introduced into industry, in the course of the Soviet purchases here would offer serious inist policy of national socialism. The formation of a solid united front of strug.
execution of the Five Year Plan. The relief to large sections of the unemployed Stalinist leadership in the and in the gle. The fight around the slogan of long second year shows that the plan has been here in the states.
Comintern looks upon the international pro term credits to the Soviets is a fight that far surpassed in the oil output, and has What then is the task of the Commun letariat not as upon the indispensible allies eventually results in mutual benefits to the registered enormous rises in steel, machin ists under these conditions. The task of in the struggle for the construction of 80c workers of both the United States and Rusery and electro technical production. The the Communists is to link up closely this ialism as part of the world revolution, but sia. It cements the bonds of working class collectivization of agriculture, which, ac demand for the extension of long rather as upon admiring spectators who will solidarity on an international scale, based cording the figure given, has reached 50 credits to the Soviet Union with their gen some day, somehow be moved to emulato on the actual needs of the moment. The per cent in the grain area, enabled eral struggle for unemployment relief. To the example of Soviet Russia.
slogan of long term credits to aid the executhe Soviet Union export threefold the concretize before the workers the possibil What happens under such circumstances? tion of the Five Year Plan unites the amount of grain exported in pre war years. ities that these long term credits offer for recent event in Germany serves as a Workers of America and of Europe with The seven hour day has been established their immediate relief, in the shape of fill good illustration. group of German capi the workers of Russia in a combined strugfor 43. per cent of the total number of ing orders required by the Five Year Plan. talists, after a visit to the Soviet Union de gle against capitalism and for the victory workers and the average wage has been To make clear to them on this opportune cided to grant the latter credits to the ex of world socialism. It is the duty of the increased by 12. per cent for the period occasion the superiority of the socialist sys tent of 250, 000, 000. Immediately, the Communists to carry it deep into the of the first two years of the plan. All in tem. And to mold on this basis their in Berlin Rote Fahne, the central organ of the masses.
all, an especially pointed proof of the superiority of the socialist system of production over the capitaist methods, particularly offset by the depression and decline of world economy.
For almost half a century the slogan These indisputable successes stand firm.
By ARNE SWABECK the impudent demand of John Lewis, of the eight hour working day was one of The Five Year Plan has confirmed the exmade back in 1928, to eliminate from the the most powerful slogans of the working pediency of socialist production and has come powerful means of unifying the industry 250, 000 coal miners. In reality, class throughout the world. Everywhere it guaranteed successes for the future. But working masses, employed and unemployed more than that number have already been the Five Year Plan cannot be carried out became inscribed upon the proletarian alike, and set them into motion against either definitely eliminated from the indusbanners, inspiring solidarity, and unifying their class enemy.
without the aid of the outside world. The Thirdly, it corresponds try or remain there in the standing army the struggles. It was violently contested backwardness of Russian industry cannot with the working class needs today. Parti of unemployed. In the railroad industry throughout by the capitalist enemy.
altogether he wiped out. Finished products cularly in the industrially highly developed on the Class Roads, between December To the capitalist class the longer work(shoes, clothing, etc. are needed to raise United States has machine production reach 1929 and December 1930 a total of 248. 527 the living standards of the workers, to day represents so much more absolute sur ed such a stage that the very right to live workers lost their jobs according to the replenish the energy, the material resources plus value produced without any additional for millions of workers becomes bound up Bureau of Statistics of the Interstate Comof the Russian workers who have spared investments in the instruments of produc with a drastic reduction of the present merce Commission. In other industries, no sacrifice in their enthusiastic execution tion owned by them. More surplus value working day.
similarly, the machine developments are of the plan. Light machinery must be importspells more profits. This is the basic The Workers Resistance rapidly displacing labor power, adding to the reason for their bitter ed in large quantities to supplly these needs.
opposition to Working class resistance to the capital ranks of the unemployed even during the any shortening of the workday. They have ist offensive is appearing now in its first favorable periods of the capitalist production The basic pro of Soviet export no intention of granting it without the most early manifestations. The short strike of cycles.
is grain. The collectivization of argiculture, severe struggle. In fact they would rather, the Lawrence textile workers has been fol. It may thus appear as if the demand based on high class technique, can bolster pressed to the wall, grant many other con lowed by others in the New England textile for the six hour work day without reducup the grain export immensely and thus cessions which do not cut so directly into region. At the Kensington, Pa. mills, sev tion in pay, in the present unemployment greatly increase the purchasing power of their profits. They know that the shorter eral thousand workers have fought militant situation, becomes purely an objective of the Soviets with which industrialization, workday is a real gain for the working ly against the increased speed up. So far amelioration. While naturally this is one planned economy would receive new, more class.
it is only embracing light industry, but in of its purposes, it is by no means the whole.
stupendous impulses. For this purpose too, Visionary Slogan southern Illinois also groups of coal miners Such a demand presented at this time and large imports of agricultural machinery are The eight hour work day is not as yet and metal workers have resisted the bosses adopted by the organized section of the required.
established for the working class as a whole in the face of a most terrifte onslaught. working class, would effectively help to pre At present, the capitalist governments, in any country. Nevertheless, would it be Likewise in the unemployment movement pare for the general workers offensive despite the deep going depression that is more visionary today to advance the slo there is a growth of militancy. All in all, which will become so essential.
undermining them, are unwilling to facili gan of the six hour workday without re these early signs are the harbingers of great Immediate demands by their very natate these imports to the Soviet Union, duction in pay than it was when the eight strugles to come.
ture are limited in scope cannot pre which would give work to thousands upon hour work day slogan was first promulgated Even a possible revival of the capitalist sent any solution to the working class probthousands of workers in their own counpreceding the struggles of the 80s? Not at production cycle would not seriously alter lems. They do not by themselves reach betries. They prefer to divert the workers dis all!
this perspective. Such a possible revival yond the bounds of reformism and always content away from the real causes by fairy Could victory in a struggle for realizing would have as its foundation more speed carry the danger of strengthening of re tales of Soviet dumping. They want to the six hour work day appear within the up and more wage reductions. It would formist illusions. But an actual demand for force the workers state to retreat from realm of practical possibility to the Ameri only make so much more inevitable the re the shorter work day when obtained can its hard earned socialist positions. They can workers today? The answer must be: sistance of the working class.
become a source of further strength to the fear the great sweep that the Five Year Yes. One need only remember that al general reduction of the American working class in its advance toward the Plan gives to international revolutionary ready in 1922 the United Mine Workers con working class standard is the avowed pol revolutionary goal. The struggle for its action.
vention, by rank and file pressure, adopted iey of the capitalist masters. Particularly attainment can become a powerful lever to Soviet Russia, despite its great achieve a program of fight for the six hour work is the unemployment crisis being taken ad set mass forces into motion. Moreover, by ments, is not an isolated, self sufficient ecoday. At this moment within the various vantage of for a drastic wage cutting cam virtue of the fact that it embraces the innomic unity. It is bound up by the threads conservative railroad unions there is devel paign. Demands for reduced cost of pro terest of the employed and unemployed of world economy and must act as part oping a demand for the six hour work day duction are continually reiterated in pub workers it will similarly become a of it, utilizing its strengthened positions without reduction in pay. One may also re licity material from the big banks of the powerful instrument for unity of the masses.
a weapon of the world revolution. The call the proposal of the last of country. The extent to which actual wage The six hour work day slogan, which Soviet Union needs the aid of world eco Metal Trades Department convention for a cuts are being enforced may be noted from does not exclude other necessary slogans nomy for the success of the Five Year Plan. five hour work day without taking it ser late reports of the Labor Bureau, Inc. Dur but supplements them, particularly possThe capitalists are reluctant to grant this iously in the sense of expecting a struggle ing February wage cuts were twice as num esses this quality. It further becomes the aid. The workers of the capitalist coun for its attainment.
erous as increases.
general focal point for all efforts towards tries are out of work in large numbers. It is, however, primarily as an offen The Miners and Railroad Workers the shorter work day. This is already now Soviet orders from their countries means sive slogan for the coming rising labor The coal miners and the railroad work a life necessity for the American working work for thousands of them. The workers movement that the demand for the six hour ers look forward to the establishment of the class. The six hour day without reduction are the ones that must fight for long term work day without reduction in pay assumes six hour day as a means of diminishing the in pay should become the central slogan credit grants to enable the Soviets to buy its real importance. Secondly, it can be ravages of unemployment. We remember of the toiling masses.
The Slogan of the Six Hour Working Day