THE MILITANT. WORKERS OF THE WORLD.
UNITE Weekly Organ of the Communist League of America Opposition IV VOLUME NO. 26 WHOLE NO. 85 Entered as second class mail matter, November 28, 1928 at the Post Office at New York, under the act of March 3, 1879.
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1931 PRICE CENTS Reply of the Steel Workers 23, 000 Strike in Lawrence, Mass. Hoover Announces Will Left Wing Repeat Errors?
Where Rakovsky?
What About Paterson?
Preparations to Resist Wage Cuts on the Order of the Day It has already been amply demonstrat real factor in leadership of organization As we go to press, the report is re. ences are eloquent and bitter testimony ed that the 10 percent wage cat decided and resistance are much greater. These celved of the walkout of 23, 000 textile to the treachery of the of lead.
upon by the board of directors of the become two additional positive points of workers in Lawrence, Mass. the second ership, particularly in the recent textile United States steel corporation, affecting real value in favor of the steel workers. strike of the Lawrence workers in restrike and militant leadership is at strikes. The opportunity for a militant The latest Hoover conference, this for furnishing loans to Industry. In the about 220, 000 workers on Oct. 1, became we are again facing an issue of national cent monthe. The alignment the signal to a whole series of wage cuts proportions and importance a wage of the hand in Lawrence now. But it will be time with the bankers who dominate the background of the new plan borers the for a number of the biggest industrial slashing throughout the industry. But forces is not yet clear as this is written. lost fatally if the Left wing pursues the financial and Industrial life of the coun question of foreign debts to the United concerns, such as the General Motors, the steel workers as yet remain prae militaney and determination of the work which has just had such. catastrophic retives in Congress of both parties, has makes only a vague reference, without but the wide scope of the strike and the polley of sectarianism, bombast and blufttry, and then, formally, with reprenta question of reparations. On this, Hoover the United States Rubber Co. the Color tically without any trace of organizaado Fuel and Iron Co. the Good tion or actual preparation for struggle bers with which they have srtuck against sponsible Left wing militants continue to ing of the ills which are eating into the from the policy enunciated by him at the rich Co. the Northern Pacific Railroad, In face of this situation serious minded the mill barons.
the biggest Arizona copper companies. revolutionists can look upon with deep allow the stalinist incompetents to conseveral New England textile concerns apprehension upon the attitude of the The of unlons appear to bel tinue their rejection of the Leninis vitals of American imperialism. The new time the debts reparations moratorium velation from the White House was first proposed.
and the other major steel corporations oficial party Jenders proclaiming and on the scene first, despite the fact that ited front, rejection which hus been advocates the establishment of a central Similarly the reaction of the steel work apparently pushing forward for local the last strike enabled the left wing. proved so ruinous of late?
corporation, with a revolving fund of at Only those who are permanently gulll ers to this slashing of their standard strikes against the present wage cnt, ex through the National Textile Workers least halt billion dollars, which is to ble wll find it posable to believe that will in many respects determining pecting them, as stated by Foster, to Union, to get a foothold in that famous redliscount banking assests which are not the new Hoover plan of action will sucfor the working class as a whole. sprend like wildfire. This is not the textile district. The characteristic blun See page FOUR of this issue for com now eligible for such service at Federal ceed in liquidating the acute crisis Wages and Living Costs By Ethelbart Stewart, the United in face of this national fasue carry all time caused the Left wng to lose all sorts of the recent referendum for the so called frozen assets of the smaller ing The principal problem for the Am.
pursue. Local strikes ders of the Stalinist leadership at that rude Trotsky keen analysis of the les. Resery Banks. The aim is to free the through which the United States is passStates Commissioner of Labor statistics, the dangers of becoming abortive of fact that it had gained and more than that, dissolution of the Prussian Landtag and banks which have been hit in past erican ruling class, and its goverumental we are informed that since December itating isolation of the most militant what it might have gained. Past experi the policy of the German Stalinists.
1025, tising that period as the basic fig Sections to become easily crushed as a months, and further to set up the means agent, Hoover, to solve, is that of setting a scale which would at least approximure of 100 both for cost of living of means of administering decisive defeats the wheels of industry into motion on the American workman and for total before the main forces can be collected ate that of the late prosperity period.
payroll in manufacturing industry, when before any adequate preparations and orThis problem Hoover has not even come compared to June 1991, there has been Kanization can be accomplished.
close to solving by his numerous cona total drop of only 15 per cent in the ferences in the past, and surely not by Unquestionably the wage cut in the cost of living but of 10 per cent in the steel industry can become a real incentive is Stalin doing to him? What is happen pelled from the Russian party after ovsky in the shortest possible time! This depression was but slight and tempor Where is Christian Rakovsky? What of the Bolshevik Leninist Opposition, ex. the immediate task of exterminating Rak his oracular pronouncements that the The total pyroll, of course, includes in main task. Amongst revolutionists there me with the unbending Aghter against the Fifteenth Congress and burled alive corresponds entirely with the general ary. Freeing the frozen assets of hun this case the present teavy unemploy should be no dispute about that. Organ: Bolshevik revolution, the founder of the The reports we policy of Stalin, with his personal char dreds of banks is a stop gap in the altreceive are highly acter and above all with his position uation. But it does not accomplish what cuerst of capitaliste por iets today when ization in preparations for a nationwide Communist International, the head of the alarming. Neither in Moscow nor in at the present moment.
is imperatively needed by capitalism. the one adds to this the drab prospect of strike should be the issue at present.
Ukrainian Soviet Republic, the Bolshevik Leningrad has anybody exact informa With the destruction of both the Left extension of the market. The wage cute much more deep going wage slashes, as ARNE SWABECK. Ambassador to France, the sterling leader tion about where Rakovsky is and under and the Right Oppositions, Stalin has have only succeeded in narrowing down aliready haughtily proclaimed by the what conditions he is living. Two ver finally revealed himself before the party the markets at home. The lowering barons of finance and industry, the outsions are being whispered about: accord and the proletariat. Economic develop the standards of living of the masse look for the working class indeed being to one, Rakovsky is to have been ments have reached an extremely critical throughout the world has only accenti comes one fraught with sinister importi transferred to Astrachan and placed un point. It is now imporsible to throw ated this state of affairs. Falling con To what extent and how effectively can the steel workers take up a serious rethe other, he is to have been interned as the working class, before its vanguard. the decline in foreign trade, do not se sistance to these attacks? For the mombeing in an abnormal mental state. stands the question of changing the pol apear to have come to a halt in thel ent this is quite a crucial question. What The Stalinists Unload Responsibility for Their Bankruptcy The versions are not contradictory. It icy, of changing the regime in the party careening downward.
the attitude is of the American FederaRakovsky is at Astrachan, which is quite and the Soviets consequently, the quesThe October 5, 1981, Issue of the Dally, social myth. And maybe, finally, Will the new central redisconnt ban tion of Labor leadership and what can be Worker contains the following around Trade Union Unity League might doevrybody who know it. The specialtion, above all, of the politienl fate of solve these key problems? Hardly. Tha the possible, he is not at liberty, otherwise expected from them we have so often re Stalin and his clique. That explains it may bring a momentary relief to som pointed in these columns. Through ing letter on its editorial page from an something about it.
gime is the regime of complete isolation, the new fury of repression against the of the banks, particularly in the rura out the whole present period of wage ers Union and a reply by the acting edit ganlxer is entirely understandable. For that in order to explain away this is base falsification of Yaroslavsky against of the millions who have been suffering The bewilderment If the Southern or it is quite possible and even probable Left Opposition: on the one hand, the sections, is possible. But the vital need: Green and other Of officials about some other party central organ, which many days, the Worker has not printed lation, the Stalinist agents are referring Trotsky. on the other, the sinister meas the most intense miserye since the com standing like the rock of Gibraltar we quote here in full: a single word about the Paterson strike, to Rakovsky mental state. In one ofures of Stalin against Rakovsky. These mencement of the crisis, the foodless against wage cuts. are just so much WANTED: INFORMATION as though it had never taken place. For his last reporte, Yaroslavsky quoted cer complement each other.
empty chatter. It is not associated with Dear Jorge, writes a comrade from weeks before that, the party leaders in tain letters and declarations of Rakov Stalin is determined to achieve the look forward to no amelioration of their homes and the homeless families, Car an appeal to the workers and prepara South Carolina :charge of the forces in sky. Yaroslavsky went to Yagoda, of complete physical annihilation of the lot. Under the best possible circumtlong for their resistance. and such could see by the papers that Bm Mur Paterson blared out, in bis headlines and the to have him furnish polt thousands of imprisoned and exiled Lett Their empty proclamations to organize National Textile Workers Union. This fabulous successes in the strike, Lacking against the Left Opposition. Yaroslav Hlower of the Bolshevik core of the movemore, the burdens of the wage cuts, the the automobile Indusrty and the south is interesting to me, as am an organ actual support from the bulk of these sky latest reports were enough to in ment. Above all la he set up sending standing army of unemployed which is paper they were written on. Now they had thought he might be still in jail, pursued by the Staliniste, the latter sions against this old revolutionist. These openly and place the responsibility where in the United States, will weigh Nike. address themselves to the employers asy. or deported by now.
sought every day to make up for this suppositions coincided entirely, as we see, it belongs.
ing that wage cuts will not help the And speaking of mislaid strikes, asl lack by abuse, faked storles, blue and with the absence of ar mountains upon the living conditions of To allow such an act to go by un the American proletariat.
recovery of industry. But, it is, of you did the other day, see a little bombast. At virtually every stage of about Rakovsky and with the rumors by the militant workers would challenged course, a well known fact that the em story on the second page of today Dally the strike, the Left wing found itselt spread about him.
Each the ployers aim is to unload the whole bur Worker, which implies that the Paterson to be outwitted by the of Muste Rakovsky was already deported to be a shameful calamity. The voices of talist sages and statesmen only demon den of the crisis upon the backs of the strike is over, when it says: During the Lovestone combination, which was itsel Astrachan before below transferred to sistently that Stalin is compelled to reruptey. Even the respites that they may workers as a means of facilitating an strkce, the militancy. etc. sedulously preparing to surrender the Barnaoul. The climate of Astrachan, a treat from his dialolien plan of exter sain are only breathing spaces for the Industrial recovery. Hence the wage This also is of special interest to strike and the strikers.
cuts.
me, since am doing work. The propons made by the Milltant, for Rakovsky. At the time of Stalin mination. In the party, in the Left wing ruling class in their remorselens march The steel workers cannot look for any ni read the Daily, every day, also Labor which urged the left wing to become the liberalism. Rakovsky was transferred organizations, everywhere, the demand towards the end. It is the workers misleadership or assistance from the of Unity and the Southern Worker each banner bearer of the fight for unity of from Astrachan upon the insistance of the must be made: Release the fighters of sion to speed the day to force concessions The difficulties in their way are week, but have no idea if the Paterson the strikers, were rejected by the call doctors. If he has been sent back there, the October revolution! Stop the repres from bloated wealth, to act with resoluindeed great. Herded into their miser strike is still on, won, lost or anything ously cynical strategists of the Stalin it means that Stalin has set himselt stons against the Left Opposition. And ton and militancy in the struggle for a above all, hands of Christian Rakovsky! new society.
able hovels, working and living under the about it. Maybe you can enlighten me school. They were going to prove how most brutal industrial and political op believe the bad a superior was their line of conduct in pression, with armies of privately owned National Council meeting on September 5, the strike.
OPEN FORUM police and a complete spy system watch where undoubtedly some important matFor their every move within the plants ters were discussed. would be inter party and left wing forces have suffered Oct. ath. THE RISE AND FALL OF Now the proof is evident to all. The and within the company owned cities in ested to learn what took place. As crushing defeat. What is left of the which they live, only the greatest power have not heard a word from the National strike is apparently in the hands of THE MACDONALD LABOR GOVT Lecture by Arne Swabeck Miltant Correspondents Describe Moods of the Workers Recent militant organization can batter down part of August, in spite of repeated elve stirup holders. The Daily Worker Oct. 16th. Lessons of such walls. It is a well known fact that requests, possibly you can let me have al does not even presume speak of the Struggles LONDONfected in their pay a stand which has the steel barons have already before this few facts.
strike any longer. Harrison George. Coal miners and Paterson Textile The position here grows more and already brought promises from the govwage cut announcement taken all possi Well, we knew that the comrade was acting editor of the Worker, member of strikes. more unsatisfactory: it seems that as ernment of possible readjustment. But ble precaution to forestall effective re sold down the river. but we are handi the Political Bureau, highest body of Lecture by James Cannon the crisis grows more acute so the unprecisely because there exists no capable sistance. Undoubtedly they even have capped in answering by grape vine tele the party, professes a complete ignorance Oct. 23rd. Communism and Syndicalism certainty and confusion of the Parts Communist leadership the movement in Spain their spy system busily engaged not only gram as the old abolitonists used to do. about what has happened to the strike. leadership increases. Their failure to seems likely to come to nothing.
Lecture by Max Shachtman state a concrete policy right at the beIt was necessary for Party to enter organization but also to provoke abortive has become of the Paterson strike. May. ledges what the party has not dared to Oct. 30th. Tom Mooney Appeal for a simning has led the party into making this struggle perfectly clear abont two actions which can easily be defeated.
blunder after blunder: even now the things the immediate steps to be taken Past Experiences imagined it. Maybe there was and maybe party participation in Paterson is an Lecture by James Cannon lead being issued half hearted and un by the workers, led by the party, to meet The steel industry is rich in expert it still on We don know and it admission of complete, disgraceful, un LABOR TEMPLE, 14th St. and 2nd Ave. real.
ences of spontaneous strikes on a local seems doubtful whether the organizer of extenuated bankruptcy.
The strong feeling aroused amongst the tion necessary and the ways of fighting: the Government attack; the organizaAdmission: 25 Cents scale arising out of grievances, of spe it knows, either.
George pretends not to know a thing working class shows no sign and the role of a revolutionary party cial conditions, within single plants. Maybe, in fact, there ain any about the strike. Quite a comprehensive Unemployed admitted free with Unem ing: indeed it grows daily and has been Though entirely unorganized, many such National Textile Workers Union at all. reply for a member of the almighty ployed Council cand strengthened by the sailors splendid points the party blundered. It still in such a situation. On both these strikes have been successfully won by the Maybe it what the philosophers call a (Continued on page 2)
Questions and Discussion stand against the economies to be ef avoids any clear answer to the question workers. But the industry is also rich being asked by all workers How are we In experiences of strikes of national to fight! Thre can only be one reply character around issues of national imsince in such a situation the workers portance won by the employers. The have only one weapon to commence such powers of the steel trust are as mighty a fight with general strike action. The today as before. The forces of state party leadership asked whether strike suppression and the private armies of Abern, action is their policy reply that strike police and gunmen are as much at their The second national conference of the differences. However, in every funday marking a new stage when compared to following membership: Martin disposal as ever. But today we also communist League of America (Oppositmental aspect the discussion resulted the first held a little better than two James Cannon, Vincent Dunne, Albert action is a weapon that needs to be years ago. At the first conference the Glotzer. Hugo Oehler, Max Shachtman, used wisely True enough but comnew wave of riding resistance of the four days session of fruitful discussion with comrade Coover from Minneapolis pivotal point became the one of elabora Carl Skoglund, Maurice Spector and ing from those who for the last four years have sought strikes on every litworking class in face of which the power held in New York City, September 24 In the chair for the first day session. tion of a platform based upon the gen. Arne Swabeck.
of the mightlest trusts might be redneed to 27 inclusive. In the unanimous opin: the credential committeee reported the eral international views of the Left Op It cannot be dented that since the first tle protest, have held up ridiculous imto rather small proportions. In this lles son of all delegates it recorded a sub following branches representeed: Toronto, position with an endeavor to apply it conference that is, during the early mediate demands for the workers to stantial forward step for the Left op Boston, New York, Pbladelphia, Chicago in the sense of building a functioning preiod following it, a certain organiza strike for, who have used the strike real hope for the present It will be recalled that during the time position in taking account of the past, St. Louis, Kansas City and Minneapolis group in the United States and Canada. tional slump set in, which naturally also weapon on very unwisely and mainly of the mighty wave of organization of the both of achievements and of shortcom. Smaller branches, such as Montreal, New Compared to this, the second conference had its political repercussions. The to impress their stalinist pay master, it Steel workers in 1910, the labor move ings, as well as in its adoption of a Haven and Richmond, could not see could record a developing degree of ma center became greatly weakened, the nec signifies a cowardly running away from ment as a whole was experiencing an guiding policy for future work upward curve. growth of organization completely free and untrammeled al bearing upon reducing the size of the at hand not only of results of our pro were serously curtalled and naturally Party campaign of demonstrations is and a growth of militaney. So much so discussion during a preceding sixty day delegation, for example, from such dis paganda activities but also of our be the obstacles in the way contained cle meaningless and merely a parallel camthat the reactionary of leaders period, conducted without any trace of tant points as Chicago and Minneapolis. coming a factor of actual intervention, ments of friction. One of the blows was paign to that of the 11 It is not found themsdives compeled to engage the factional or bureaucratie encum. The delegates were practically exclus in the Communist movement. Thus it expressed in the inability to continue the run for the purpose of securing general in this campaign of organization and brances which have now become the rule Ively workers direct from the shops, had a firmer foundation to build upon weekly publication of the Militant which action by the workers. When this is strike. That they did it reluctantly is in the official parties, culminated at this many unemployed and compelled to heat and could further elaborate these views had begun in November 1920, about one pointed out and then the results of this true. That they used every opportunity conference in such a way that the dele their way to the conference or to travel in conformity with the additional require year after the first expulsions of left policy are seen in secret maneuvers with for betrayal is equally true. Nevertheates could return to thelr branches on local expenses; hence, the inevitablements of a situation of intensifying de Oppositionists. Yet the great vitality of Maxton, Kirkwood and Brockway, the leadership is to atless there was an almost Irresistible with a conviction of having attained fur reduction of size. Not only that but velopments in the class struggle. Fully the organization, the power of the Left reply of the prerades of the Teft sweep of organization and struggle. And ther strength to the future cadres of the some regularly elected delegates, because cognidant of this more advanced stage. Opposition platform made it possble to tack the party yet the steel trust, aided by these factors American Communist movement. This of these economic reasons, had to be re the second conference adopted in full weather this period with only minor dis and allow numerous right errors to go mentioned, won the battle and since does not mean that no difference of view placed by alternatives. In this respect the views contained in the various theses organization in a few branches. So unchecked. robably nothing could show crushed practically all remnants of un points were presented, for example, on certain weakness became manifest by presented by the National Committee, much so that capitulations or actual loss the essentially reformist attitude of the fon organization.
such issues as an evaluation of present the absence of those experienced com indorsed its stewardship during the past of membership during these trying dit Party leadership more strikingly than Today, the possibilities for dissension, trend of economic and political process redes who could otherwise have contri period and decided to continue the lead ficulties were exceedingly rare wthin our their attitude towards the sallors. The division and betrayal of these imperial es as well as in regards to interpreta buted much.
ership with an addition of two metubers ranks.
cuts in pay of the sailors received no In spite of these handicaps, the second to the National Committee. Thus the 1st agents are lessened. The possibilition of the role of the Left Opposition This experience the conference faced attention from the Party and wero tles for Communists and militants as al in its practical tasks. There were such conference succeeded as expected in committee is now constituted with the (Continued on page Continued on page 2)
British Crisis Sharpens Strike Second National Conference Marks Step Forward