December 11, 1937 SOCIALIST APPEAL Moscow Amsterdam Unity: Diplomatic Maneuver Corcoran Case Analyzed At Minneapolis Meeting Militant Executive Of Hosiery Union Slugged in Minneapolis NOTICE Internal Bulletin No. is now ready for mailing. All Locals and Branches are urged to send their orders at once. Continued from page 1) on militant action by the workRemittances shoud be made by ers. The bosses are not averse to Comments on the Agreement between the check or money order. DO Pat Corcoran assassination racketeering in the unions it and the Soviet Trade Unions in NOT SEND CASH.
is a tragic consequence of a total pays them well. cinching proof an Interview Granted to El Universal The National Office is comp ity of events which have raised of the worth of the drivers leadletely out of Bulletin No. Minneapolis from a notorious ership is the fact that throughout (The Spanish question. Any By Leon Trotsky leaders? One open shop town to what is pro all their strikes, the workers have can buy, Il local or branch having these answered, somebody in order to bably the best organized city in been led from one victory to anon hand will please communiThe unification of the world corrupt him, but not in order to the United States, as recently at other, until the scale for drivers cate with the National Office trade union organization, in the make him a fighter for the emantested to by officials of the Na which was 42c per hour afwithout delay as some branches present case the adherence of the cipation of the oppressed. This tional Labor Relations Board. ter the victorious strikes of 1934 did not get their full quota.
Soviet Union to the Amsterdam practice has since that time taken The killing of Corcoran is not is today 70c per hour.
Due credit will be given. isolated instance, but is a link The revolutionists in the trade International, could bring great on gigantic proportions. We must advantages to the working class not forget that the gold industry in a chain of events forged by union movement the Dunnes and under only one condition: that has made great progress there are actually unions in the The industry of bribery powerful international apparatus the Associated Industries in this for cooperation with the other the political aims upon the aid of the sinister forces, the enemies of the Dobbs and the SkoglundsThe role of have always sought the means But there are none and of corruption has made still of Moscow.
there. There is a trade union ap greater progress. do riot doubt that Stalin, case (the is the former honest but comparatively conparatus totally dependent upon Many of the so called friends Yezhov, and Shvernik will utilize Citizens Alliance) is that of a servative elements in the trade the ruling clique and dominating of the who have no the so called trade union unifica pack of jackals, who seek to union movement, have always the working masses. Thus, dur. thing in common with the Russian tion in order to enlarge their hold besmirch the names of the lead sought a united front with other ing the last bloody purge, which people, its revolutionary tradi upon the number of leaders with ership of the local progressive progressive forces in joint action is, moreover, far from being end tions, its sufferings, and its a supple spine and conscience.
unionists. The bosses have not against the common enemy, the ed, the central Council of Trade aspirations are not more than what will be the reaction of the reconciled themselves to the fact bosses. It is quite possible to Unions was totally reorganized interested friends of the ruling working class against these that the labor movement has successfully work with conservawithout the so called unionized clique of the Kremlin. Some of practices? We shall see in the so materially raised the living tive trade union forces in furthmasses knowing more than what them are paid directly with gold. coming years.
standards of the workers, has ering the immediate demands of appeared in the official press. Others depend in their personal Coyoacan, Nov. 29, 1937. caused millions of dollars more the workers, higher wages and The purge of the trade union apto go in the pay envelopes of shorter hours and better workparatus was done by the their employes.
ing conditions. This may be upon the direct order of Stalin. Since 1934, when the drivers done, as proved by the work of The former trade union leader, union succeeded in having the the Dunnes in the drivers union, the old revolutionary, Tomsky, bosses operate under signed con despite fundamental differences was driven into suicide by a tracts, the trade union movement, with conservatives like Corcoran campaign of calumnies and vi.
of Minneapolis has trebled in on politics, religion, and the goal cious persecution. His place was size, until there are today over of the class struggle. Men like taken without the least consul45, 000 workers working under Corcoran, unlike the Stalinists, tation with the membership. by union contracts. There are 50 knew that there was a class Shvernik, who was never and is MIXXEAPOLIS, DEC. conflict with the group dominat more local unions in 1937 than struggle, and that the only way nothing more than a bell hop in Vern Simonson, Minneapolis ing the local union to which he there were three years ago, new to win it was to organize unions the personal service of Stalin. Socialist party member and Ex belonged.
industries have been organized, which genuinely fought for the The renovated apparatus occupiesecutive Member leading an op Dunne, Socialist Party better contracts have been secur interests of the workers.
itself in its turn with purging the position group in Local 38 of the Organizer and associate of Pated each year, which mean shorter factories and the offices, in hunt. American Federation of Hosiery Corcoran in the leadership of the hours and more pay and yet the Sailing Under False ing and trapping whoever is dis Workers, was brutally attacked Drivers Union said: Stalinists, with characteristic efColors contented, critical, or makes de and injured by a gang who seiz Vern Simonson is the second frontery, echo the bosses charges mands. Thus the so ca unions him at 7:30 Thursday victim of violence against labor, of gangsterism. and that Pat The Stalinists sail under false represent an organization of in night, Dec. as he was retuin employed by open and disguised Corcoran was killed as a result colors. While they are the classdustrial police, an appendage of ing from supper to his job on the enemies of labor. He is associated of inter union warfare. collaborationists and counter revthe and not at all an night shift at the Strutwear with the same group of labor The role of gangsterism in revolutionists, they denounce all autonomous organization of work Hosiery plant.
officials as was Pat Corcoran. the trade union movement is to honest revolutionists as cias a Dr. McCrimmon, of 601 Whether in or out of the terrorize the workers in the collaborationists and conter revMedical Arts Building, stated of this group has always stood unions, to take bribes from the olutionists, and this in the name Unification? No. Dip that he had, a severe brain con for a united labor movement and bosses, and to put the quietus of Leninism, of social revolulomatic Accord!
cussion, two broken ribs on the against. union splitting.
tion. They have put the Soviet left side, and the abdominal re want to emphasize most tical program. As a left wing Union, which is a trade union It is not a question then of the yion badly swollen from kicks. emphatically that Vern had no Socialist, Simonson is opposed to raised to the highest level, in a unification of the working mas. Half conscious and in extreme quarrel with the national leader the frame up and murder system precarious condition through ses, but of a diplomatic accord pain, Simonson labored to give ship of his union. When Alex perpetrated on an international their crooked maneuvering and between the Amsterdam apparaan account of the attack and his McKeown was stationed here scale by the Communist parties compromise with the capitalist tus, decently conservative, and opinion concerning the reasons the representative of the national of Stalin. It is of course a notor nations of the world.
the police apparatus of Moscow. for it. Pieced together his story office of the American Federation ious fact that the same MausethThe heads of the British trade was: of Hosiery Workers, Vern and he Smith Bean gang who fought Call Police unions would like well enough to On 6th Street, between 8th and were on the best of terms and him in the unions are also parti The wailing and yelping of the orient the external policy of their 9th Avenue South, on the south were in substantial agreement on sans of Stalin. They denounce country toward a rapprochement side of the street, a group of men union policy. Likewise, it must be Vern Simonson as a Trotskyist Minneapolis Stalinists for a spewith France, the United States, seized him and dragged him be noted that throughout the country fascist and declare they will cial police investigator to pry and the The French hind a building, striking him on the American Federation of drive all of us out of the labor into the records of Local 544, is policy, that of the People Front, the head and kicking him in the Hosiery Workers maintains cor movement. They try to raise a a case in point; since when do is based upon the support of ribs and stomach. They fled when dial relations with the entire lynch spirit against us, which can militant workers go to the police for help; since when have the Moscow. Jouhaux, the head of the a car approached and its driver labor movement. Only in Min lead to anything.
French union, while proclaiming stopped and came over to see neapolis, under the regime of the These utterly irresponsible Stalinists forgotten that the police the independence of his trade what was happening. The driver Bill Mauseth Hilliard Smith gang people have been attempting to are the agents of the bosses; and unions, belongs in reality to the helped Simonson into the car and who control Vern local, is there strike at our group by attempt that the state is the agent of the alleged gangsbosses; and that the state and People Front. It is this political took him to Simonson home, at friction with the labor movement. ing to linku conjuncture, nationally and inter 6500 15 Avenue South, where his Vern Simonson opposed this in terism in the labor movement, the police and the bosses are the nationally, which has determined sister immediately called Dr. Mc sane union splitting policy as They have thus created an atmo enemies of the workers. Before the meeting, the Comthe rapprochement of the Am Crimmon. After examining him, well as he could as the lone op sphere in which any enemy of sterdam trade union bureaucracy Dr. McCrimmon reported the at positionist on the local executive labor can strike down labor lead munist Party, not through its with the pseudo trade union bu tack to the police.
board, and as a result was vilified, ers with impunity, for the Maus own name of course, but through reaucracy of Moscow.
calumniated and threatened by eth Smith propaganda has in ad that of one of its members, one Fought Splitters We must add still another elethose pursuing a mad policy of vance pinned all such crimes on Robert Kelly, organizer of the rule or ruin.
ment which is not without imthe labor movement itself. The Miscellaneous Workers Union, As a Socialist party member portance. Already for some years, associated with Vincent Dunne fact is that the bona fide labor local 655, asked a series of quespractically since 1924, Stalin has and other labor leaders in a fight Threatened by Stalin movement of Minneapolis, the tions on a mimeographed leaflet.
purchased precisely through the to prevent the splitting of unions Men The Socialist Party, in great conmost progressive in the country, is clean as a hound tooth. trast to the practice of Comintermediary of the so called trade and to maintain the unity of the They hated Vern Simonson, These attacks come from ene munist Party, allowed the leaflet union apparatus the sympathies labor movement of Minneapolis, not only for his trade union policy mies of labor whether open or vendors to distribute them ever of various trade union leaders Simonson had come into sharp but at least equally for his poli disguised.
at the very doors of the meeting.
abroad. commencing with Eng(As a matter of fact, one of our land. We are able to cite some leaflet distributors was beaten up of British trade union by a gang of Stalinist thugs reheads on the regular Moscow paycently at a Stalinist Ralph Bates roll. Others have benefitted meeting. The questions on the through exceptional privileges, leaflet were adequately answered or their wives have received preby Cannon; also numerous ques sents in gold or in platinum. This practice of tions from the floor. Where one demoralizing the Speaker questioner asked who beat Vern workers leaders was, be it sail in Simonson, a member of the Minpassing. one of the principal James Cannon neapolis Socialist Party, who is points of my struggle against in active opposition to the StalStalin clique.
Just Returned from Minneapolis inist control of his local union of When become aware of this FRIDAY EVENING, DEC. 17, 1937, 8:00 the American Federation practice, in the spring of 1925, Hosiery Workers, Cannon asked protested vigorously. But WEBSTER MANOR, 125 East 11th Street (Near 4th Ave. why this question was not on why? Stalin countered, Do not Auspices: Socialist Party (Left Wing. New York Local the list of questions addressed the bourgeoisie buy the workers to him in the Kelly leaflet.
ers. cases The Stalinist Frame Ups From Moscow To Minneapolis of