Two Criticisms of the Hour Day Slogan Malkin Expelled From Opposition Our readers have become acquainted with the criticism made by comrade Mihelic of the slogan, the six hour day without reduction of pay, which was adopted by our National Committee. Recently the theoretical leader of the official party, Earl Browder, also came forward with a criticism of this position. Thus there are two views on this question which, however, differ essentially character. The first de mands exhaustive reply because it contains serious arguments defending a view.
The second is of much less consequence becaue by its very stupidity it brands the arguments of this mediocre theoretician as having nothing whatever in common with revolutionary theory.
Comrade Mihelic presented his views for discussion. Browder evidently presented his arguments as the last word on the party line that is, until the next turn which is bound to follow. In this reply we present the views of our National Committee.
The April Communist contains an article by Earl Browder entitled How We Must Fight against the Demogagy of Fascists and Social fascists. In this article Browder condemns the Hoover stagger plan. but he also makes the discovery that slogan for the six hour day with out reduction in pay, as advanced by us means the same thing. Were that so, one might ask: What about the slogan for the seven hour day. Browder exposes the social fascist usage of the six hour day slogan. In that he is closer to being right. We quote from the article in question. The Socialist party joined in the game with the slogan slightly modified sixhour day and five day week. This was immediately taken up by the Trotskyite renegades, as their own original discovery. and the Communist party was denounced by them as an enemy of the working class because it refused to join the chorus that extended from Hoover to Cannon. correction is necessary here. In the first place we did not denounce the Communist party as an enemy of the working class. We have the opposite estimate of the Communist party. But we do condemin its leadership for its failure to keep the Party on the correct revolutionary path.
In the second place, we advance the slogan in the question as the six hour day without reduction in pay.
Does the Party Oppose this Slogan?
Revolutionary workers may think that there is somehow an unfortunate misunderstanding here. The party leadership cannot actually oppose the six hour day slogan. No there is no misunderstanding. It is the theoretician speaking officially.
The er tent to which such a false position may lead became very vivid in the recent arguments of Amter, one of the lesser theoreticlans. Of course we know that he will excell anybody in stupidity and put it into fifty pages of manuscript. He will rush in where angels fear to tread. And so, in an article in the Daily Worker about month ago he actually denounced the demand for the shorter work day as assistance to the Hoover stagger plan.
Why does the party leadership oppose the six hour day slogan? How will it maintain that in contradistinction to it, the seven hour day slogan leads in the rection of the revolutionary working class solution of the unemployed problem. This it fails to explain, and there is no good explanation, because its position is false. Its position can lead only to preventing the rerolutionary working class solution to the extent that it prevents the correct slogan of the six hour day without reiluetion of pay from becoming instrumental in rallying a class movement of the American workers.
The reasons for the superiority, in the sense, of the latter slogan we refer to consider in the reply to comrade Mihelic.
that much more possible to shorten the existing work day.
It is our duty to raise this slogan in an effort to have the idea penetrate the By ARNE SWABECK ing that, when we raise the slogan of the masses. We must, with the small forces six hour day in a general manner we will at our command, do our best to assist in his two major contentions: First, that: succeed in nothing but appearing visionary. organizing the fight for its realization and From the general angle of the unemployed Secondly he states: reduction of the by all means to win the Communist movestruggle, the emphasis must be placed on working hours can be won only by direct ment as a whole to become active partielthe fight for social insurance as against struggle with each separate set of bosses pants. The various slogans supplement one the demand for the six hour day without and not by pressure on the government and another and thus make up a program of reduction of pay. Secondly, he contends in that sense it surely is much different immediate demands. One important part that the slogan itself should be the shorter than the fight for social insurance.
these activities is to carry on class educa working week with no reduction in pay.
tion. Only that can assure that the workVe have no agreement at all with such Both contentions are incorrect.
ers. when set into motion, take a definite views of the six hour day slogan. We will In regards to the first contention we direction along which each demand becomes much rather subscribe to Lenin concepdo not approach this problem from the point a stepping stone to the revolution.
tion of the eight hour day slogan as stated of view of counterposing the one slogan to in his preface to the pamphlet May Day the other or even counterposing its emin Kharkor. The demand for an eightphasis. The one slogan supplements the hour day, however, is the demand of the other and, when combined, help to make up whole proletariat, presented not to indivi.
a program of immediate demands.
dual employers, but to the government as Comrade Mihelic proceeds to amplify his the representative of the whole of the pre contention by saying that social insurance sent day social and political system, to the At the last meeting of the New York places the chief stumbling block in the path capitalist class as a whole, the owners of branch of the Communist League of America of the capitalist designs to use the army all the means of production. Collected (Opposition) a resolution was adopted to of unemployed against the employed. He Works, The Iskra Period, Book I, page 47)
expel Maurice Malkin from the the adds: Social Insurance and the fight for This does not in the least put us in Left Opposition as a deserter unfit it offers the chief instrument by which the for the position, against which comrade Mihelle membership the League. Because Malunemployed and the employed workers can correctly warned, of drawing a mechanical kin has in the past been considered an be united. If they cannot be united on this basis they cannot be united at all.
analogy with the period of the eighties and active representative of the Left OpposlThis is certainly an tion, we deem it necessary to announce this altogether the movement for the eight hour work day.
ton But is it more visionary now to promulgate action to the Communist workers, to exsweeping statement to make. We believe the slogan of the six hour day than was plain to them the causes for it. and to warn we are much more to the point in say.
ing: The slogair for social insurance the militants that the Left Opposiiton recorthe slogan of the eight hour day? Is the gap from the present work day to the six jects all responsibility for the recent ac rect. It is the one with the most immeditions of Malkin, which we have condemned.
hour day bigger than from the then preaic appeal te urenployeci workers. It is not to cruceived merely for purpos vailing work day to the eight hours? We What did Malkin action consist of!
think not. History gives no such proof. At a time when the Left wing union (in of ameliorating the present unemple the needle trades) to which he belonged, isery but primarily as a means of tri10. What is, however, more decisive today was under severest fire of its enemies; at 11. into the o:bit of the class struggle all is the fact that we are in the epoch of capia time when the liquidators of the Lovethose workers who suffer under this pre talist imperialism with its immense rationstone Right wing were concentrating all ure. In this sense, it also becomes a means alization of proxluction and permanent eliHeir energies lo sow panic among the of advancing the struggle more directly and mination of millions of workers from the Left wing and drive it into the Schlesinger more specificalis against the existia productive process. During the decade endand Kaufman camp in wild disorder at tem of capitalisan.
ing 1929 it is estimated that productivity such a time. Malkin. without informing Giranti social insurans certainiy Der worker increased 48. percent without the Communist League or any appreciable, reduction of the work day.
becomes an in Tertant stumbl. ug bis 13 receiving permission from it, made a private deal with the hot analist designs, as do mat We have reached the stage of the develBegun, Kaufman fight hand man in the actual working class gains. By way of com opment of capitalist production where the Right wing lurriers nion, as a result of parison, it is well to remember that in the six hour work day has become an even more which the known nited States it present there are indica potent need than the eight hour work day Conmunist Walkin, Was to be admitted into the Right wing tions that some form of unemployment rewhen it was first advanced in the eighties.
union under special privilege. While it is lief in be aa. Senatore. governors. The present epoch is also the one of correct today for militants of the fur workand oth rs have to an exten: put themproletarian revolution. This imposes so ers branch of the needle trailes to join the selves publicly record. cour e. much more the duty upon us to advance Kaufman controlled union for the purpose efforts world 1! 1en be towards loading the the slogan of the six hour work day pre of building a Left wing within, Malkin whole burder of such relief up the workcisely the sense in which Lenin speaks action had nothing in common with this er having a job. This does not in the of the eight hour day slogan. In this man policy.
least invalidate the slogan for unemployner, utilizing the slogan to assist in setting ment insurance. Actual relief will be For this he was put on trial by the workers definitely into motion in the direc New York branch of the Communist League.
granted only provided the workers fight tion, not merely of obtaining relief. but of sufficiently for it.
He twice failed to appear before the fulfilling its historic rôle.
While the capitalist class displays its to answer the charge. Malkin knew quite hostility toward unemployed insurance we The present conjuncture of the working well that at his hearing in the Left Opclass movement is not the same as during may take for granted that it will be much position his action would be categorically the struggles in the eighties. Today, it is condemned and repudiated. In an attempt more hostile to granting the six hour day rather a defensive curve occurring under a without reduction in pay.
to cover up his desertion from the Left In this respect we may also refer to period of crisis, unemployment, and drastic wing movement, he is planning to repudiEngland and Germany with their experience lowering of the working class standard of ate the principles for which he was once Ilving in unemployment relief as an established But precisely in this are created expelled and persecuted by the ofilcial system; miserable though this relief is. In the conditions and the possibilities for the Party bureaucracy. He is now again trythe first country mentioned, the employers coming rising movement. In this situation, ing to seek favor at their hands. We know have already, as in the recent coal miners the character of the six hour day slogan is that the Stalinist bureaucrats, who have strikes, offered the most bitter resistance that of a bridge from the defensive towards no principles, are quite capable of whiteto the shorter work day, and enjoyed the the offensive. Hence, it becomes an effec washing Malkin in order to strike at the connivance of the McDonald government in tive means for preparing for the next stage Left Opposition.
this attempt. We may conceive of what of the struggle.
The Left Opposition, however, has no the picture would be in either one of these In regards to the practical organizaintention of allowing anybody who claims countries with serious working class tion for this stage, one is naturally tempted or claimed association with it, to sait unstrugle for the shorter work day and the to ask: Would the realization of the sixder false colors. Malkin planned bargain opposition the capitalist rulers would offer hour ork day appear within the realms with the Party bureaucrats is not a strrenin comparison to the irritation they suffer of possibility to the American workers?
gthening of our Communist party. It is from the prevailing unemployment insur We think so and do not conceive of it as a cheap and fruitless endeavor to cover ance.
visionary. This is attested by the fact uy desertion from Communist principles in There are already indications that they that the nited Mine Workers in convention the trade union field. Against this deserwill rather retain the longer work day with back in 1922. went on record for a fight for tion we put the Communist workers on more production of what becomes absolute its attainment. Within the various railroad xuard. Malkin departure from the Left surplus value. even at the cost of mainworkers unions there is todas a growing Opposition marks a departure from the rev.
taining an unemployment insurance system.
demand for the six hour work day. The olutionary class struggle. Ils plan to Marx has particularly emphasized how attainment of the six hour dar would mean rally to the arty apparatus is a camoumuch dearer the absolute surplus value a real gain for the workers, and a streng flage. The Left Opposition, by its expulproduced by the longer work day became to thening of their position. The relief which sion of Walkin. remains true to the revthe heart of the employers than the relative it could afford from the unemployment clutionary principles of Communism, to value produced during the course of the situation could certainly become visible the ideas and teachings of Lenin and Trotshorter work day. Their motto is keep the now to the workers.
sky, to the task of regenerating the Comworkers at the grindstone long hours, speed We do not take the view that if the munist moveixent by purging it of the them up and they will pay for these out workers cannot be united on the basis of opportunist corruption into which the of work. Now to the second contention of the slogan for social insurance they cannot present regime has led the party.
comrade Mihelic. He says: Granted that be united at all. We think rather that the NEW YORK BRANCH COMMUNIST the six hour day could be obtained at once six hour day slogan particularly possesses (which it cannot) even at this time it can the quality of uniting employed and unLEAGUE OF AMERICA not be proved that this would provide jobs employed alike in the struggle. Neverthe(OPPOSITION)
for all the jobless and even if it would, less, we fully realized that the more com May 29, 1931.
it would be only a question of a very short plete program of our immediate demands, period before the situation would be together with the proper pursuit of the the same as at present, due to ration fight on a revolutionary basis. is necessary alization, new machinery, and the law to accomplish working class unity and to BOSTON LECTURE of surplus value. Thus social insur guarantee its correct direction.
ance offers the most permanant form of Because of these various reasons, it Comrade James Cannon will speak on the relief (even though it is not complete in would be entirly incorrect to substitute the Prospects of the American Revolution on itself) and places the biggest stumbling slogan the shorter working week without Sunday June 7th: 2:30 at Belmont block in the path of the capitalist class. reduction of pay. Due to its indefiniteness Hall. 150 Humboldt Ave. Roxbury, Mass.
From this point, comrade Mihelic pro it would not sufficiently furnish a clear The meeting is under the auspices of ceeds to show the necessity of beginning at pivotal point for the working class in this the Boston branch, Communist League of the very bottom and arrives at the con struggle. Moreover, the slogan of the six America (Opposition. There will be dis.
clusion that the slogan should be the hour work day without reduction of pay. cussion after the lecture and party comshorter working week without reduction in and thus the better possibility of crystal rades and sympathizers are espec! ally ir pay. This he also amplifies by first stat 11aing a definite movement. would make it vited a a WHAT ARE MIHELIC ERRORS?
Comrade Mihelic presented a seriously reasoned argument in support of his views on the slogan the six hour day without reduction of pay. The manner in which he poses the question has its distinct value, and a discussion on that basis can become helpful toward further clarification. In his comments on the crisis and unemployment situation, as well as in his criticism of shortcomings in our position, and, what we might call our unemployment program, there is much which can be welcomed. We lay no claim to having as yet adequately covered the subject or to having presented an analysis and program complete in every respect. We are far from that and can well afford to discuss even further than this present scope.
However, there are some of comrade Mihelic contentions which can by no means he accepted because they spring from an essentially false position. For example,