PAGE THE MILITANT SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1932 EDITORIAL NOTES In Spain. The Democratic Republic ofthe Workers» First Hand Account of Conditions Under the Socialist Republican Regime sure OILS ANOTHER DEFEAT IN KENTUCKY whose sole instruction in revolutionary This is the first of a series of arti but half of that wage. In Saragossa, dny. But of what value is the hour ter the Bolshevik revolution, even the The conviction of William Hightover ethics had been imparted by him, mude cles on the situation in Spain by com where the cost of living is soinewhat working day to those who cannot find casual one, does not pak a single word and the sentence of life imprisonment is an uuluvited visit to the headquarters rade Max Shachtman who has just higher than elsewhere, a painter will work for one hour a day?
in favor of the former of its artificers.
returned from a visit to that coun earn pexetas a day. In the smaller the second heavy defeat suffered by the aud carried off some books. Weisbord Unlike Spain, the Russian workers protry.
city of Palencia, building trades workers Unemployment in Spain at the presenet claimed their republic after three years miners and the entire working class of announced this depredation in a chur America in the Kentucky murder trials.
like masons, carpenters and painters re moment is territle and the consequences of the most borrible and exhausting war acteristie manifesto and submitted it to The social democrats throughout the ceive only some to pesetas. Day lab are almost indescribable. Industries These are no mere law cases. The court the whole revolutionary movement is the world beat the drums mightily for their orers in the cities may get an average Paralyzed, there is an known to history, a war in which the acute financial flower of the Russian working class and room, during these historie trials, is an question of the day.
Spanish colleagues when, a few months of presetas a day, often les crisis, the peseta continues to careen peasantry was driven to the slaughter by arena of the class struggle. In reality, We are not in favor of burglary and 10, the prominent socialist parliament But there are not the worst loy ang along the downward path. was reliably a depraved royalty and at cyniend semiulthough not formally, the right of the larcony and it is easy to lucite us against ars leader, Luts Araquistain, speaking means. Agricultural laborers not only informel accurate statisties are unavail feudal militarism, and decimated by the workers to organize at stake. The practitioners of these arts priciple for the Constitutional Committee, pre have a highly reasonable employ. butable that between forty and forty five millions. The Russian revolution took whole prosecution is designed to vlothis matter being reinforced by personal sented the committee report to the when they do work in the fields they percent of the industrial and agricultural place amid the economic ruin brought action and to intimidate others by the or passing judgment on the alleged cul to the fundamental law of the Javelots and in some districts as low us potwenty percent are at work only part of pletely. The Russian revolution saw the timize nen for asserting this right in grievances. We were just on the point Cortes at Madrid which incorporated in will get from to pesetas a day workers, some 1, 000, 000 of them, are about by czarism, a heritage which it completely unemployed, while another has not yet been able to throw of com ferocious Justice ineasured out to the prits when Welsbord forestullei is by proclamation that Spain was henceforth as a day (about twenty cents a day the victims democratic republle of the workers in coin. together The attention of the entire with their the time. In Vlwayla, they say, there is light of day at a time when hall or more an appeal to other authorities. The inworking class ought, therefore, to be centered on comrades and pupils to court and there workers could be expected to perform of sleeping in barns and stables with full weck at a time, and this in a sec troops, ravaging the country and locking comparable revolutionist took his whilom Not even a genuine republic of the board and the highly doubtful pleasure not a single worker who is employed for vf it was occupied by hostile foreign this courtroom spectacle in Kentucky: prayed for the justice that had been miracles for the proletariat, after an ex the live stock. In aladrid, saw a sight tion whose mining, metal and building out the Russian government from sechs the chief witness for the defense denied him. And then, to make ixtence of a handful of months. But the which can only be compared with the trades industries make it proportionately tion of some of the most essential in be compelled to hear and to heed. But that this lesson in Marxism would not least that one can demand is that the very worst days of the sweat shop in more important, industrially rexions. The such a movement is not to be seen or be restricted to the defendants, the juge political regime guides the destinies of dustries of New York forgotten Fast thau Barcelona itself. When the situa Russian revolution was almost conheard. The judicial hirelings of the and the court attendunts, he published republlc so lofty in intention should side. In a room of a communal family tion was not quite so acute, the munici cidental with thich tablishment cal operators krind out the convictions a letter in the New York Forward exkive some indications that it plans to Mat, a half dozen young girls, not one palities would kive free food to the job strangulating cconomie blockade which and prepare sothers in an atmosphere of plaining his action. He went to court, Sepuble the statues sehe tolbe. whose of them out of her teens, were crowded here that we the food is not only of secuity.
he said, on the advice or Roger Bulldwin. puble it announces itself to be or together, at work, making waists, with greatly interior quality, but many of the sought and for the sucreeded te purely legal defense, however com That ought to satisfy anybody who is not that, then at the very least, it should no ventilation and the most meager 11 municipalities are confining the food ra the world markers pretent, unless it is reenforced determined and clamorous agitation, pre legal and political authority. More cadeavors the workers themselves may them were that, literally get pesetas town. That is, only those workers who Yet, in spite of these enormous cir sents no serious obstacles to the radi over, he protested, it was a civil suit and make to ameliorate their conditions. By for eight hours of work, but since they are actually born in the town may taste ferences, quantitative as well as quali roading of a working class militant! not a criminal crise which as they say even such a simple and empirical test, work day and a hall each day, or of the thin bounty of the workers re tative, which constituted such mountain This can be laid down as an axiom ex in Missouri Is a distinction ir not the new workers republic of Spain 12 hours, they carry off the magnificent public.
obstacles to the progress of the tracted from the record of the class! difference.
has already proved to be one of those pay of 75 pesetas at the end of each Russian workers republle, one may nay struggle in America.
Misery and suffering march in the train without exaggeration that the Holshevik Whoever has 11 cruel deceptions with which the bourgeback breaking, eye tearing day. Such a lusions about this, whoever wants So what can we do now? We have obsle has always fed those over whom sight is far from unique in Maarid: the this situation, which bus even more regime gave the working class im the tol confine the defensive action of the never yet testified against any body it rules.
system is quite widespread. And what dramatic and sensational results. Pro peasantry lufinitely more in one week wdrors to the presentation of legat also barred by ethical scruples from ish workers actually look like, now that sections of the country?
court and cannot go as witness. We are What do the conditions of the Span: must conditions be in the less modern talism under all conditions, rages like and regime have even thought of giving stitution, an inescapable eurse of capil than the socialist Republican revolution evidence and the collection of funds expressing any opinion which might pre Alfonso Bourbon has been driven from a pestilence. The streets of Madrid, the Spanish workers and pesants in the for lawyers fees, is at best, a harmjudice the case of the defendants. And the throne, his henchmen «lispersed, and stood when standard is better under for instancy literally ran with these whole nine months of their existence.
Such a wage ful, if well meaning, fool. is highestdes, if it is a matter of law, cannot the republic proclaimed?
the reader learns that a fortunates like a great sore. The time to appeal these cases to the work the seceding faction claim minority rather modest meal at a very modest ataco. or payroll holdups, which were At the very outwet, the Bolsheviks In class. nation wide action of the rights in the property? We have heard The Conditons of the Workers restaurant costs two penetas.
workers is an impostponible obligation of cases where minority groups of stock rional Labor Bureau of the League of conditions of the average worker are accurences again, just as the individual and not the law collaborationist burThe far from revolutionary Interna eges are three pesetas. The housing era dictatorship, are becoming frequent duction which was veritable control Adoren brought to an end by the Primo de Rivs established a workers control of pro which they owe to the defendants and and to themselves.
Ixion and were granted it. We raise Nations places Spain, in a recent sarwes prostively wretched. The home of one pilluging and pitering of stores by dene which the Socialist minister of The chtet ostacles in the way of ethere also a hypothetical legal question. of our the of the dixunity in the labor ranks, and the and cite proof that they were still regard to the standards of living of the room, probably 12 feet by 7, illuminated Tease: here as everywhere. poverty is sented as a gift to the comployers in der the nesting place of crime. Along the the guise of benefiting labor. At the of fundamental class interests. This de at the time of the alleged offeuse? It some of the classic countries of misery dow four feet square with miserable its Broadway the Gran Via one se peasants the land for which they hungerpartisan disputes which take no account suffering from the influence of Wekbord working class, lower on the seat leon felemy. if one may say so Wyan air shaft win most magnificent streets of Madrid, on very outset, the Bolsheviks are the plorable circunstance is expressed in the would be a cruel judge Indeed who won the Balkans and the Baltie states obscene factional quarrel over the turn a deaf ear to such a plea.
With the Spanish peseta now equal to the communal kitchen for making. The each holding a corner of an extended Ludowners and the sanitary facilities and permission to use innumerable groups of four silent mened by simply expropriating the lurce church something case between the stalinists and the less than nine cents in US coin, the average worker lives in similar flats, white cloth luto which the passer by which the Spanish bourgeoisie their They huve acted like tradesmen one may think that these performances industrial workers average about pese containing four families, who are distri ometimes throws a copper which is to socialist assistants will never think of hageling over private properts. The would be enough for one man for the tas a day which means that of the basis buted in five rooms, one of which serves appease the flere hunger of the unem doing anywhere but on paper, if there.
and Hightower. By that deliberate ai haustable. On top of all this to round lars a week. In Valenica, the workers one room forty five pesetas a month.
about the trials and conviction of Jones comic resources of our hero are inexwould average something like tiver des speak of paid the average rent for the constiution so eloquently proclaims his state in Russia was a trenchant reality republie, so that the sensibilities of the and not the elaborate fare thunt has been ence they take upon themselves a part out the year, so to speak Welbord ad average from to 10 pesetas a day.
The misery of Unemployment bourgeoisie shall not be made to suffer, played in Spain, where the church conof the responsibility for the ontcome. In dressed a letter to the Communist League in Madrid, the capital of the country, For those who are fortunate enough and in order that the miserable real tinues to have a stranglehold on the all this the stalinists are true to them proposing that we get together and talk which has relatively few industrial workities shall not too rudely reveal their country industries and agriculture, not most selves, for it is their mission to noll things over with a view of unity. Thisers, the building trades workers to have work, life is still bearable. harmony with the farcical constitutional in its own name so much it has ylelded and discredit the banner of Commun proposal he blandiy luforined ns. is highly raid in the city, get anywhere so to speak. But whnt about the un ism. The conduct of the of designed to be a bridge to the Commun from 13 to 15 pesetas a day. The metal employed? With a munitiont venture phrase, cities like Barcelona and Billao in the form in the more legal name have formally prohibited the four with of its known adherents.
ficials is no better. They content them int League. But he is separatel from workers in Vizcaya, probably the most the Republican Socialixt coalition govern selves with the fact that the hated us in such a way that a bridge can highly paid in the country, receive from ment has introduced the hour working a cloth from begging in the streets. But In a word, the difference between the Commumists have nothing to do with the hardly be the medium of connection. 15 to 17 pesetas a day. Workers in the day. It cost it little, we most of the mendicaney is still widespread, in spite defense. Any scoundrel of faker is wel. What this fellow needs is a ladder or, famous textile mille Barcelona get workers had alrendy acquired that stan of the prohibition. Along the Itamblas two rerolutions and the two republics come at their defeuse conference, but not better yet, rope.
about 10 pesetas a day, while women card. In some cases, the law made con in Barcelonn, infants, as wikl eyed and they producent is the difference between the delegates of Communistie organiJ. workers in the same mills will average) aitions worse by lengthening the working raggedly clothed as any of the Russian the proletariat in power which crushes homeless waits over whom the world the bourgeoisie and their social dem zation. In the self satisfied contemplation of this victory over the factional foc bourgeoisle and the social democracy ocratic guardsmen, and the bourgeoisie national program to be rounded out with love to make such a horror stricken to in power which, with the all of its they lose sight of the defeat suffered revolutionary strategy and tacties for the do, infants and their elders by the hum social democracy, crushes the proletarby the class and the basic reasons for peculiarities of America.
dreds are engaged, either professionally lat. However extensive the advertising HUGO ORHLER. or by economie compulsion, in the decampaign which the international social The Mife sentences in Kentucky are After a decade of existence as an ex, ronts? It cannot be entaloged with the grading busines of begging.
democracy is carrying on for its Spanish warning signals of a furious offensive Illed group from the Communist party. Left Opposition, the Ultra Left or colleague, this fundamental distinction against the wakening labor movement. the Proletarian party is now proceeding the The Two Revolutions cannot be covered up.
The laboring massen, attacked from ev. through a period of internal struggle and themselves admit.
Right wing currents this they But was your workers republie any MAX NILACIITALAX ery side, robbed of their standards and split. The element that made up the Neither can facts better at the outset? One can hear the deprived of their rights, have no way pivoted around a section of the characterize them as an independent curretort of all manners of social democrats The next article in the series will ont but to fight. They must find the socialist party of lichigan as part of rent of Communism, nor is the urxian and their apologists. The compurien appear in the Militant next week um.
way to fight unitedly, as a class, an in the Left wing majority expelled by the group in America. The Opposition of the Spanish workers republie with der the title: The Republic Estab jury to one is the concern of ali. this Socialist Executive Committee minorits. itself is the best denial of this. The Every Sunday, p.
the Russian proletarian dictaorship allishes Law and Order.
klorious motto of the Knights of Labor And now the is repeating the pro has tactical differences but no theormust be revived and inscribed on the cess on a smaller scale with the Keretical differences with the and al. JAN. 31 HEMINGSEX hanner of the workers once again. Di acher minority controlling the aparatus, ways abstractly endorses the and From Left ferences and disputes over metbols and expelling the majority. All the Burean all its policies. This shows, generally theory which are nnavoidable in The Class Nature of the American sectarian the crat inethods of the socialists or Stalin speaking, that they are process of clarification must not pre ites are used by Keracher and. o. rumplut of the official Communist Party Government On February 20, 1931, 400, 000 workers surance had lapwed: the struggle for re.
rent unity and solidarity in the common This party, after a decade of existence and concretely speaking a right center Free Admission in the United States according to the lief was equally insuceful. The crisis fight against the class enemy. If the con: as a sect devoting its time to theory sectarian grouplet suporting Stalinism.
at Dally Worker demonstrated for Unem was still deepening: the misery of the scientious workers in all cnmpe will theory that now proves to the majority Stalin socialism in one country has its HALL, 1435 NO. WESTERN AVE. ployment Insurance. Compared with the man was greater and more dedicate themselves to this principle and of its own members to be void of living counterpart in the National Con Bourgeois demagogues were fight for it they will soon find the way Auspices: Chicago Branch. Communist demonstration of the year before, this spread.
to sweep the disrupters aside and create part to bookshell activity. The deep na the one hand, the expulsion of the Marxism, can only exist is a counter munism.
League of America (Opposition. showed a great decline. The Daily Work threatening to take over the leadership er claluns 1, 250, 000 workers in the March of the movement for relief and then the conditions for mited front of world crisis closed in from all sides on Left Opposition from the was the 6, 1930 demonstration. This tremendous ployment Insurance. At this point, the labor. Then they will be able to halt this placid conditon causing internal most detrimental to the world revoludeerense was hailed by Browder as an Marty decide to revive the right for the the defeats in Kentucky, and claewhere, motion that broke through the isolation. tion and the Soviet Union, on the other advance (Daily Worker, March 6, 1981. employment Insurance and transform them into future victories. The first convention in Detroit was a rehand we can say the struggle within the On the basis of this advance Browplica of the Stalinist methods of pro and its majority under the influence der on March 12, in the Daily Worker, Its first assault on capitalist greed was the National lunger arch. This ceeding over the disputed questions: on of the Opposition is healthy and motivated a turn from the fight for Un SORRY ADVENTURE the analysis of the crisis, the trude una step forward for American Communism Labor Fakers Betray the Shoe and inployment to a rystem of organised was organized around the locals of resolution adopted by the Executive ComIt is just about a year wince Weisborou question, immediate demandes, unem. Now adrift, the Opposition has the Railroad Workers will be the tople at bekry.
mittee of the on October ployment, etc. The revolt from this key to the problem and will determine it mass meeting held Wednesday evening, having falled to convince us by argu position of theory reacted to its op. they proceed forward or backward. January 27th, 7:30 at the Main This in part is what Browder wrote: On the basis of this doenment there ment, set out to prove by example that posite of mass work in a bope of Where are they today and what are they Library Hall. 14th and Olive Streets, St. Where the clty authorities reject the vived fight for Unemployment Insurance he alone wissessed the secret of organ breathing new life into the The Pheading for?
Louis, Mo.
demands for the relief specific cases is taking place. It is important to me ixing a mass movement and steering it Opposition comes fom a party of In The Opposition is not a homo Martin Payer will speak, with John a food of starvation. the council must set up derstand exactly what this resolution on the straight revolutionary path. It activity. While we were a minority ex. genious grouplet by any meana The ac. Scott as chairman.
collection committee which proposes with regard to unemployment.
we still remain skeptical it is not be pelled by the bureaucrats who did not tion of Cleveland and New York already will undertake food collections from the Has the karty learned from its mistakes!
cause his adventure has been devoid of allow our position to reach the party. throws light upon the process of con. Ist eague of America (Opposition. Auspices: St. Louis Branch, Commun. Iarger capitalists and corporations of Does it repudiate the opportunism of interat or cause he failed to make con The Opposition now constitute the tradictions they brought out of the party the locality, particularly in those instl Browder and Co. tributions of a certain kind to the move majority of this party. This explains to with them and have not yet outgrowntutions where the unemployed were If the party efforts to win them.
ment in general. You have to give him an extent the reason they swing to mass or contradictions that may kill them as formerly at work. When the committee credit for trying. He didn prove his activity and their accusations that the a grouplet, depending upon what their is unable to get food from the corpora ployment Insurance demonstrated any own case, it is true, but he proved some. Lett Opposition are too theoretical and most advanced force does in the next tions and large capitalists they shall thus they demonstraed that the party thing else. What his exploite lacked too much concerned with the Russian is several weeks. To Join Centrum was then begin to solicit small merchants and could not unite the masses around the in the herole quality they made up in sue but this does not justify or give no step forward, it was only a jump from the petty bourgeoiste generally calling slogan of unemployment insurance alone.
unique humor that was all the more in MONDAY, FEBRUARY There is no quisetion that Chemployment them a Marsian base for their action. the tail to the body, unless they go into upon these elements at the same time to fectious because of its apparent uncon quite the contrary, FASCISM OR COMMUNISM IN join the Unemployed Conncil in demand. Insurance is what the masses need to th party with the intention of correcting alelvine their misery and to serve its a sciousness, like the comic act of a sudGERMANY ing relief from the government trensurThe split in the is national with the revisionist position. Another section bulwark ayalast strike breaking. It 18 faced clown. Therefore we maintain, against those who want to cross him of the Left, through expulsions and with of the grouplet under Bereiter tufluence SPEAKER: GEORGE CLARKE 01 ies and in demanding unemployment in true that under certain conditions the 914 Grand dAvenue surance nationally.
drawals, holding the majority over six have accepted the Grossman theory as workers will fight to Unemployment la as a total loss, that the man has his units and contacts throughout the counthe latest in Marxism. The Scandinavian Second Floor This fight for relief reached its surance, but it is also true that the party uses. Revoluttonists remain human, and try the base of the Lert is in the head grouplet and some American clements Ausplees: Communist League of America highest expression in a recent New York failed to build a broad movement of em (Opposition)
amusement. We live parlous lives, beset quarters city and here it fuces the great that dropped out of the before and demonstration in which a worker carried ployed and unemployed workers for it. placard, reading: We want more, not with griets and difficulties, and one who est internal contradictions as well as others that were expelled make up some less relief.
One reason, of course, is the stilling can make us laugh is not to be utterly the greatest possibilities. They have an healthy element that would be an asset bureaucratic regime in the party and scorned. brief account of the life and open forum two block from the to the American Communist movement.
While the dwindling party supporters its organix wrich drives way deeds of Albert Welsbord during the headquarters with a weekly attendance To go forward the Opposition must has declined answer the question of an International were struggling to carry out Browder thousands of workers sympathetic to past year is justified by this considera radicely Before the Opposition program, a question still unanswered in directives, the fight for unemployment Communism. Bucaueracy played Its tion.
insurance was confined to resolutions part but it is not decisive. The basic could organize itself nationally, Cleve their group. It may be much nicer for passed at narrow, nectarian conferences, reason is to be found in the Illusions As the world knows or ought to know land and New York had moved into the some to have their own play howwe and Jewish Organ of the and to articles in the Daily Worker and the masses. The masses are not yet conthe herculean endeavors of Weisbord official Communist party. The Chicago play the game according to their own other party organa. The masses no long. vinced that prosperity will not return.
have recently culminated in a split of Opposition can say this shows rules than to be a faction of the ComLeft Opposition er could be counted by the hundred thou. They still believe that the crisis will his organization. From this we learn weakness on their part and dismiss it munist International as the Left Opposlthat the total membership of the mass at that but facta prove it only reflects ton and take all the dirt and slander aands, not even by the schooled exagger lift, bring in work for them. They do movement at the time of the split was the weakness of the national center of that goes with it. However, there is no aters who write editorials Against Ex. not understand that wc, like England.
thirteen people. Out of these thirteen, the Opposition and disintegration choice for a Marxlan, we do not make FIRST ISSUE OUT aggeration. They had disappeared will now be blessed with a permanent NEXT WEEK from the struggle.
six seeded or were expelled, leaving will claim the rest unless drastic steps history out of the whole cloth, nelther army of unemployed. The masses think net membership of seven in the par are taken at once to correct their inter do we make a party out of the whole cents per copy Browder strategy, as could have been in terms of work. Unemployment in ent organization, including Welsbord national perspective.
foretold by a pioneer, ran its course surance is predicated upon the permanent cloth that will carry through the sue himself and his immediate family. There One dollar per year without results. By the end of the sum unemployment of large sections of the Since the party fastly chopped off part cessful proletarian revolution in the Un Send your subscriptions to: mer of 1931 it was clear to all that com American workers are slow to fight for working class. For these reasons, the upon it is alleged some members of of Cleveland and New York we should ited States, but in order to build a party UNSER KAMF peting with capitalist charities for pinch Unemployment Insuance. STAMM.
the split off faction, who had never be ask, where do we catalog the to accomplish our task in America we 84 East 10th Street penny doles could not advance the rev.
loped to any organization before and Oppositon among the Communist cur must have above all correct interNew York City olution. The fight for Unemployment In. Tb be konti.
The Proletarian Party Opposition CHICAGO Open Forum Unemployment and Communism Wide ST. LOUIS Kansas City Unser Kamf