THEMILITANT Workers, Out On May Day!
Published Twice a Month by the Communist League of VOL. VI, No. Whole No. 68 NEW YORK, MAY 1, 1931 America (Opposition)
PRICE CENTS ous charges of dumping to distract the workers attention from the capitalist criminals at home to whom they owe their distress and to incite them against the Soviet Union.
Confronted by the peril of this assault upon them, the workers of the United States, following in fraternal solidarity their brothers throughout the world, must unite and solidify their ranks to defend their own class interests. The capitalist class is strong not because the workers are weak, but becane the workers are not united on a militant program of struggle. Such a program of struggle, of resistance to the capitalist offensive, must be the rallying banner for the workers gathered throughout the land to celebrate International day of the proletariat, May Day.
The Communist League of America (Opposition. in spite of its differences of opinion with the official Communist party, therefore calls upon all workers, regardless of their political or economic opinions, to join in a powerful display of their determination to fight back the assault of the capitalist class, by turning out as one man to the Communist demonstrations on May Day. The Communists alone conduct a militant struggle for the needs and interests of the working class, in spite of the errors made by the official leadership of Communism The socialists of all varieties, they are more in harmony with increased on the other hand, are the agents in the productivity and the unemployment crisis, working class of the capitalists. In the the central slogan should be inscribed on struggle between the capitalist class and the banner of the labor movement for the the working class, these socialists fight six hour day without reduction in wages.
on the side of the former. What MacFor the relief of many tens and hunDonald does in betraying the Indian people dreds of thousands of unemployed, we must and the British workers is what the Amdemand the extension of long term credits erican socialists do on a smaller scale to the Soviet Union which will enable it to in this country. In the fight between the place orders for imperatively needed mach gocialists and Communists in the labor inery and afford employment to workers in movement, in which each represents con American industry.
flicting class interests, the Left Opposition Workers! The capitalist class bas throughout the world, led by Leon Trotsky, seived the workers by the throat. The inspired by the ideas of Lenin, stands with working class must close its ranks, unite the revolutionary working class.
its forces, combine the employed and unWorkers! Join in the May Day dem employed into a mighty movement against onstrations in every city!
the capitalist offensive.
Fight for a program of struggle, to Demonstrate your determination and resist the offensive of the capitalist class! strength on May Day! Come to the demA broad united campaign must be con onstrations in mass!
ducted to wrest an elaborate system of Long live the international solidarity social insurance, with special regard for the of the working class!
unemployed, from the hands of the capitalist Greetings to the First Workers Repclass and its government.
ublic and the International Communist In order to lessen the intense suffer movement of Lenin and Trotsky. ings of the unemployment workers imme On with the struggle for the revoludiately, the demand must be raised for im tionary liberation of the oppressed and exmediate relief for the unemployed by mun ploited!
icipal, state and federal appropriations.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE To cut down the mass of unemploy. COMMUNIST LEAGUE OF AMERICA ment, to adjust the hours of labor so that (OPPOSITION Miners Revolt Checked at Muste Convention For nearly two years, the most important countries of the capitlist world have been writhing in the grip of an unprece.
dented economic crisis. In the United States, as in the most other lands, industry has been prostrated, trade clogged up, agriculture driven into a chaotic position. All of its unexampled power, its enormous resources, its dominant position in world economies and politics, its lavish wealth, has not prevented the United States from being drawn into the deepest crisis it has ever known.
Who is suffering most acutely the effects of the crisis? The millions upon millions of workers tramping the streets in vain search for work, their hungry, desperate families, the ever lengthening breadlines are an eloquent reply to the question. Some ten million workers are out of a job. Other millions of workers, insecurely placed in industry, are having their living standards deliberately undermined by a brutal campaign of wage cutting, national in scope and affecting every nidustry. The plan of the capitalist class, driven into a corner by the crisis that has overwhelmed it, is to put the burden of the difficulties upon the shoulders of the working class.
It is labor, nourished for years upon the myth of permanent prosperity. that is to have its standards cut in half, or worse.
No other meaning can be read into the stagger plans. the wage cutting offensive of the bosses, the failure of the captains of industry and finance and of the government to provide even the slightest measure of social insurance for the unemployed. The plan of the capitalist class is to press down the standards of living of the working class to the level of misery, Lower the costs of production. is the cry of the bosses.
To lower the costs of production, so as to be able to meet the sharpened competition on an ever narrowing world market, means to lower the wages, worsen the conditions, remove the hard won safeguards of the workers.
This involves the continuation and intensifying of the capitalist offensive. The acute and unbearable misery of the ten million unemployed workers is met with a cynical light heartedness by our ruling class, which is unable to provide the jobless with work and refuses to provide them with relief. The workers still in industry, are strangling in the noose of the wagecutting drive, while the Wall Street government and its labor lieutenants in the lendership of the trade unions feed them with deceit and empty promises. Every agency of capitalism, which has shown itself incapable of guaranteeing even a minimum living to the mass of the people, is engaged in the assault upon the working class, straining every nerve to prevent the workers from resisting.
But the resistance of the workers, the defense of their conditions, the shifting of the burden of the crisis on to the shoulders of the capitalist class whose system provoked it, is the imperative need of the moment.
elass is a national campaign and not confined to any one field. The reduction of wages has its counterpart in the bosses offensive against the workers on other fields which aim to reduce them to passivity and the docile acceptance of the misery standard. Towards that end, the government has engaged upon a campaign to deport thousands of foreigners. which means to send out of the country every foreign born worker who expresses his dicontent actively. With the same aim in mind, a new campaign has been begun against the Communist movement, beginning with the archreactionary movement headed by the Fish Committee, down to the arrest and imprisonment of scores of workers in every part of the country for participation in strikes or other militant actions. In the same spirit, the starving unemployed workers who gather to demand relief, are met with the policeman club, with tear gas, with jail. As a part of the drive, the Fish Committee, representing the darkest forces of American capitalism, has launched a campaign of slander against the Russian workers republic, seeking by their ridicul.
The revolt against the Fishwick Lewis sell out agreement brought ninety nine delegates, representing miners in all parts of the country, to the St. Louis convention, April 15. The sentiment of the miners in mass meetings preceding this gathering was for a house cleaning from top to bottom and for the building of a new union.
But these hopes did not materialize.
The bitter attacks upon the rank and file the reactionary officials, lack of finances, and lack of actual preparatory organization resulted in only onesixth of the Illinois miners being represented. Those present however were there on behalf of the most live section, a total of sixty one delegates representing thirtythree locals. Ohio was represented by eight delegates, Kansas by twenty delegates, Indiana by two delegates, and West Vir.
ginia by eight.
From the first day of the convention the Muste Howat type of progressive proved to be in the majority and had the control. But before adjournment the bankruptcy of their policy for a solution to the miners present problem stood out clearly.
Further to the Right of this combination were elements unorganized but exercising a certain weight on the policies of the social reformers. To the Left was a minority of honest rank and file delegates who wanted a new union but were pulled into the orbit of the bankrupt Muste policy through the weight of the organized majority faction.
The National Miners Union, directed by the Stalinist party bureaucrats, had issued leaflety in the field urging the miners to stay away from the convention. Nevertheless, it was represented there by Joe Tash. minority of delegates supporting the policy of the Left Communist Opposition carried the main burden of the fight for a new union Alexander Howat made the opening political speech which gave a good deal of evidence on the sell out agreement but failed to give any indication as to what should be done. In his conclusion he praised the revolt of the masses in South America who had kicked out their kings and rulers and the Spanish workers who are kicking out their king. In the past, when Howat was still a rebel, he would always remember to point to the workers achievements in the Russian Revolution; now he failed to mention that. Apparently he does not know that the revolts he mentioned are purely bourgeois revolts. Muste, Daeck, Tippet and Hapgood also proved by their speeches and actions their inability to present a program although Muste and Hapgood by far were the most active in giving lip service to a new union. In this situation their position as a whole became a thoroughly reactionary one.
The most important point on the agenda around which everything else revolved was the question forming a new union.
ery time delegates supporting the Left Communist Opposition raised this issue the Muste followers denounced such talk. One delegate said: When we had the reorganized union we had the officials and the operators on our side. Now we don have them and cannot organize a union. He seemed blissfully ignorant of the fact that a union which really represents the interests of the workers can be organized only in opposition to the officials and the operators. Another delegate, remembering the glorious traditions and great sacrifices of the United Mine Workers, wanted return to these conditions of years ago but did not want a new union right now. Still another delegate said: We can go back to Lewis, we won pay dues to him, but we can organize a new union. The bankruptcy of the upper strata of the Juste leadership was thoroughly proved by actually proposing exactly the same thing.
although using plenty of radical sounding phrases and giving plenty of lip service to deceive the workers into a belief that their course was a different one.
There were in reality only two roads open to the convention. One to go back to the Lewis union, a road which the convention repudiated by rejecting the LewigFishwick compromise and by a call to stop dues payments to both factions.
The other, the building of a new miners union. We also rejected. Hence this convention was left rudderless and the course finally accepted, entirely a negative one, can at best only spell demoralization for the miners. It is rue that a new union formed at this moment would have resulted in the most extreme Right wing delegates leaving the convention. But that would just have been a blessing as there are miners all over the country who would replace this deserting element tenfold. It must also be remembered that the convention had delegates from new local unions organized which could have no cause whatever to be.
come a part of the remnants of the Lewiscontrolled of To gauge the level of the convention.
a resolution was introduced by Gerry Allard for the release of class war prisoners which strucka unanimous chord. But a resolution, introduced by Joe Angelo, for the defense of the Soviet Union and the granting of long term credits to help build industry in the Workers Republic resulted in only seventeen votes in favor. Somehow Hapgood happened to both speak and vote for this resolution (Cor The cammation of the capitalike SMASH the SCOTTSBORO FRAME UP! a The Negro worker has always been subjected to the most ruthless forms of exploitation by the American boss class.
Driven by the double whip of capitalist robbery and violent race hatred, flouted twofold for being a worker and for being negro, the American negro worker represents the most oppressed section of the working class.
Especially today, when the capitalists are pressed to the wall by their own wild and planless production, by sweeping world crisis, the increased exploitation and oppression of the various sections of the working class takes on particularly sharp and unbearable forms. In their attempt to sow dissension and conflict in the ranks of the proletariat by pitting the employed against the unemployed, the native against the foreign born workers in order to tame and crush the power of resistance of workers solidarity, the bosses stress above all, the atack on the negro worker. The negro worker is the first to be fired from his job, the first to have his wages cut, the first to fall under the intensified speed up.
This double and trelile exploitation alone does not satiate the capitalist class. They exert every effort ake this inreard of robbery and oppression secure. by a large system of frame up, slander and lynchings against the colored workers. The case of the nine young workers, framed up by the bosses in Scotsboro without any evidence is a flagrant example of this vicious method of the American ruling class. The frameup of the nine young negro workers in Scotsboro is part and parcel of the bossescampaign to divide the ranks of the American working class. It must be unmasked and defeated. Against the attempts of the capitalists to sow dissension into the laboring masses. Against the efforts of the ruling class to separate the negro from the white workers, Against the bosses campaign of legalized lynching, the entire working class must stand up as one man, in the defense of the nine negro yonths, for the defeat of the Scotsboro frame up. Negro and white workers, unite against capitalist exploitation and oppression. page 2)