SOCIALIST APPEAL SEPTEMBER 10, 1938 Pinning em Down The Russian Workers Own Story capitalism average annual earning last year was 1, 115. 00.
SOCIALIST APPEAL In Stalin Realm Approximately 750, 000 workers received less Vol. II No. 37 Saturday, September 10, 1938 than 750. 00 a year. The bosses, of course, are not in the least worried about the low standard Published every week by the SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS of living which the workers are compelled to at 116 University Place, New York, endure.
BY JAMES CASEY Telephone: National Office: Algonquin 8547 It is no wonder that even the conservative Subscriptions: 00 per year; 00 for six leaders of the railway unions rejected the pro WAYCROSS, Ga. This little city of 14, 000 is a typical months. Foreign: 50 per year. Bundle order posal to arbitrate the dispute. After the 15 Georgia community, embracing all the traditional prejudices against the North coupled with a show of reverence for organized cents per copy. Single coples cents. cut is put into effect and after a strike is threat An checks and money orders should be made ened a fact finding commission will be appointed Reviewed by JOE HANSEN religion, and exemplifying the political development of the vast out to the Socialist Appeal.
by the President not until the commission majority of the State population. LENIN It is here that Senator Walter George came to answer Entered as second class matter September 1, reports will the unions have the right to go on When Boris Silver visited Stalin Realm.
President Roosevelt appeal to the voters to have him retired 1987, at the post office at New York, New York, strike.
under the Act of March 3, 1879 as he calls the present his memories of from the Upper Chamber in favor of Federal District Attorney The whole cumbersome machinery, created Czarist Russin gave steadiness to his vision and Lawrence Camp.
MAX SHACHTMAN by the Railroad Labor Act of 1920 for the Georgia, with its 4, 000, 000 population, has just passed through coolness to his judgment. He visited cities he Editor one of its bitterest primary campaigns in its history. Staff corexpress purpose of paralyzing the initiative of HAROLD ROBERTS respondents of Northern metropolitan dailies have written columns GEORGE CLARKE had not seen for 30 years, observed their the workers, will undoubtedly be used to compel Associate Editors changes, renewed old acquaintances and heard upon columns abut the battle of the candidates, but none of the a compromise, which will mean a substantial their estimates of what had happened since 1905, articles gave more than a superficial account of what had occured. STANLEY Business Manager reduction in workers wages. If the workers There were several reasons for this inadequate coverage, the most lived on kolhozes (collective farms) and in vilforce their leaders to act decisively, nothing in important of which is that none of the capitalist papers would lages where tourists are not permitted, dwelt on print the true stories behind the distorted facts the world could make them accept any reduction intimate terms with the common people of RusA political study of Waycross, even within the limited space of Broad Hint in wages.
sia, listened to their arguments, their hopes for this column, not only affords picture of the temper of Georgia If the attempt on the part of the railway the future, their confidential discussions among masses, outside the principal cities of Atlanta, Macon, Savannah It was taken for granted by everyone that no operators to reduce wages has done anything, themselves.
and Augusta; it offers a better understanding of the moving political forces in this as well as other States of the agricultural idle curiosity prompted President Roosevelt to it has proved that they are absolutely incapable The workers, the peasants, the rank and file South.
appoint a commission to investigate industrial of running an industry that is so vital to the For many generations, Georgia was dominated in its northern relations in Great Britain. If he were merely interests of the workers in the industry and to members of the Communist Party in Russia, the and southern districts by Democratic party chiefs, whose main interested in finding out how labor disputes the life of the whole country. The railway small bureaucrats, even informers of the function was to serve the State banking and public utility Interwere settled in England, his labor experts could barons are in the first ranks of those who robbed and not a few rascals in positions of power told ests. These leaders made deals among themselves in the naming have furnished him with that information very and despoiled the wealth of this country. And their own life stories to Boris Silver and he preof State legislators, senators and governors. As is well known, a Democratic primary selection in Georgia easily sents these thumbnail biographies as well as equivalent now that they have run the industry to the to election. The theory was generally accepted that his ground they have the effrontery to ask that the significant anecdotes in his book as simply and Those were the heydays of Major Cohen, the late Hoke loss be shifted to the workers.
sincerely as they were told to him.
purpose in sending a commission to Great Smith, Thomas Hardwick, the late Tom Watson, Volney WilHams Britain was to prepare the ground for a revision The Roosevelt Government has been pouring several others. Then came the capitalist crisis.
of the Wagner Labor Relations Act. Recently millions of dollars to help extricate the owners TRUE WITNESS SPEAKS Years of Stalin Rule Have Not Crushed the has charged that the whole idea was HUNGER SHATTERS from their difficulties. Those millions could His Ideas in Soviet Union.
conceived by Tom Girdler. John Lewis ostenNEW DEAL ILLUSIONS have easily been used to buy the railroads. What Boris Silver himself, although now a Belgian tatiously refused to participate in naming a is necessary now is to take the industry away Socialist, spent his childhood in Russia, learning Hunger and destitution stalked the farming and urban member of the commission sections. Hundreds of tenant farmers lost their homes and from the capitalists and to let the workers the language fluently and becoming a member of the Bolshevik wing of the Social Democratic STALIN CAME LITTLE LATE flocked, with their families, to the cities to join the growing With the publication of the report of the operate the railroads.
party prior to 1905 (leaving it after the 1905 army of unemployed The workers and farmers listened to the Commission the suspicion that the purpose of revolution when he was forced to flee Russia Oh, no, replies the worker. No Socialist false promises of the New Deal first, with great hopes, then with the commission was to point to the necessity of because of his revolutionary activity. This early should despair of the future. Stalin, hope, skepticiam, increased bitterness and disgust. With the disillusionment in the New Deal, the State political bosses also fell from amending the Wagner Act has been strength Mexico Real Allies acquaintance with Russia enabled him upon his came just a little bit too late. There is a gengrace and lost their hold on the masses of the people.
cned. While it made no recommendation for return in 1933 34 to travel freely, to have workers eration growing up which has had the benefit But although the big political bosses and the interests they new legislation or for amending the Wagner Re affirming its right to determine those confide without fear their real opinions so that of a sound socialist education under Lenin, represented lost their power to deceive, the toilers had not become Act, the general tenor of the report justifies the steps necessary for its own national welfare, the and many young men and women are still sufficiently class conscious to act independently, nor even to free he gained information utterly impossible to conclusion that it will ultimately be used to enact Mexican Government, in a note given to the being so educated, though with great dif themselves completely from machine polities. What transpired anyone without such advantages. It also enabled culty. All the peasantry, by. mere instinct, was a steady drift of political power from state to county political legislation which will be detrimental to the press last Sunday, replied to the latest provocahim to the political forces on a broad scale, hate the very name of Stalin. In the south cliques.
interests of the workers.
tions of Secretary of State Cordell Hull. quality entirely lacking in such authors as he liked just about as much as the czar was, Like most of the other Georgia cities and villages Waycross, The report speaks very highly of the Trades At the same time, however, the Mexican note and he less feared. It won be long before Eugene Lyons who in his Assignment in Utopla the principal community of Ware County, is controlled by a Dispute Act of 1927 which prohibits sympathetic all the people will begin to see the light.
attempts to gain time by agreeing to one form political clique, whose members are all installed in public office confuses his own rather sordid personal problem at comfortable salaries. The Waycross clique represents the city strikes; it comments very favorably on the gov.
of partial arbitration, whereby the valuaof whether to work for Stalin or to work for That Stalin propaganda falls far short of bank, the Atlantic Coast Line Rallroad, which gives industrial ernment machinery for arbitration and con tion claims on the land seizures would be sub capitalist democracy with the major political convincing those against whom it is directed is life to the county, the tobacco curing plants, the canning plants, ciliation; above all it seems to approve of the mitted for examination to a joint committee. issues confronting the working class of Russia, graphically shown by a conversation between a woman member of the Communist Party and a the three blocks of retail stores and the daily newspapers. The system whereby union officials and representaThe Mexican note submits to analysis Hull molding himself and his small problem into the clergy has as one of its jobs the rallying of the congregations tives of employers, who are not directly conworker in a restaurant. Stalin 3 hour speech heroic proportions of a true hearted youth eternal laws of property, and has no diffibehind the ruling clique.
seeking after Utopia who permitted a vulgar had been rebroadcast upon every radio pronected with any dispute, are the ones to under culty in showing that these are mere fictitious materialism called Bolshevism to sully his gram steadily for three weeks. It had been These office holders are, on the whole, agreedy, bigoted, take a settlement deceitful, reactionary and ignorant lot. The county school supercreatures of the Secretary imagination. Among spotless ideals. Even after rejecting Stalin, translated into all languages of the Soviet Union No American worker is opposed to learning intendent, for example, cannot write a simple letter in gramother precedents for expropriation in the na. Lyons still bases his entire concept of Bolsheas well as all European languages and reprinted mation English, while the sheriff is a boastful advocate of from the experiences of their fellow workers in countless editions of the press, in millions tional welfare, without full compensation, the upon Stalin theoretical formulation of white supremacy.
of leaflets, and recited by professional readers other countries. But from their own experiences Socialism in one country. Lyons profers imnote makes an ironic indirect reference to the perialism. The actual issue facing the Russian at all social gatherings as part of the enter RECOUNT STORY OF LYNCHING they know enough to permit as little intervention abrogation of gold payment clauses by the working class Lyons does not even pose in his tainment.
An Insight into the mentality of the office holders can be from government boards as possible.
Roosevelt Administration prime and unmis book rebirth of Bolshevism or reversion to After listening to the woman eulogies on the gained by recounting their choice story as they gather to reThere are already movements in existence takable example of expropriations without any genius of Stalin, the worker bursts out, Stalin, minisce of the olden days. This story centers around the exploits having as their purpose the incorporation of compensation whatever, even though in that in Silver, on the contrary, is not a dewy eyed Stalin, Stalin again! guess things must be of a Ware county sheriff who, some twenty years ago, turned his unions and the establishment of compulsory stance the expropriation was carried out for the sentimentalist struggling to choose between a wrong somewhere or that the Kremlin crowd Is jull keys over to a mob that dragged a Negro from his cell to a smitten by some nervous disease.
petty bourgeois Utopia and the human values will ask you arbitration. The American workers should tree, tied him to its branches and burned him at the stake.
sake of saving capitalism and not for the wel.
a question, my fair and enlightened comrade, guard jealously their freedom of action and over which float the Stars and Stripes of imThe ofhciale joke and laugh, as they reelto the gruesome tale, fare of the people.
perialism. He is not a professional hack of the does your party believe that people will except finishing off proudly with a description of the tree, which now should not permit any kind of a report to lessen Meanwhile, it becomes clearer than ever that Duranty type, nor a non political specialist like any animal as a lion because thousands of stands as a shining landmark on the outskirts of Waycross.
their opposition to interference by the governthe issue between the two governments is not Tchernavin who can report only a single phase asses exclude you, of course go braying Besides this unsavory collection of shyster politicians, Way.
of what is happening in Russia and that com Lion Lion. think they would rather suspect going to be settled by these elaborate exchanges cross has other dubious distinctions.
When Roosevelt, in commenting on the repletely disconnected from large view of the an ass in a loin skin. Was it ever found necesof diplomatic correspondence. The real question It is the gateway to Okeinokee Swamp, with its flors and class forces in struggle. Silver is careful ob.
port, praised the cooperative spirit, coupled sary to run about proclaiming Lenin a lon?
is not at all one of the alleged dictates of infauna and wild Nie, of which thousands of glowing essays have server with an intimate knowledge of Czarist People merely had to understand Lenin and they with restraint, which is shown by those who ternational law, which is for that matter a law been published. In all this Chamber of Commerce propaganda Russia and an intelligent conception of what admired him automatically.
there is not a line of mention of the colony of living dead that represent both employers and employes in Great which exists only in the minds of international socialism signifies against which to measure the Even members of the Communist Party itself exists at the southern end of the swamp.
Britain there was to be detected a broad hint things he comes across in Stalin Realm.
hold Stalin in contempt. Silver records the fol No one dares to enter the swamp without a veteran guide.
jurists. What is at stake is the interests of imthat the workers should be reasonable in their lowing statement from an argument between To reach the swamp colony, one must take a donkey train demands and refrain from militant action to perialism against those whom imperialism optwo party members: Our children who have (a locomotive with a freight car attached running on a single presses. FIRST ENCOUNTER achieve them.
to become the embodiment of Communism are track and ride two hours through the scorching marshlands which This was recognized implicitly by Cardenas not only prevented from reading Trotsky: they are Infested with all kinds of insects.
We are certain that the workers will disregard wh. he violated diplomatic precedent by stat No sooner does he settle down in the train must, say again must, believe that Stalin is all The hundred or more families of the colony are housed in the hint. If anything they have been far too ing the content of his latest reply in a speech after crossing the border than Boris Silver en that he pretends to be, while we all know that, tiny one and two room huts, owned by u lumber company which reasonable and have permitted their leaders to to the Mexican Congress before it was embodied counters his first experience with the seething judging by the standard of the people whom he also controls turpentine lands in the area. The company also stifle their militancy. They are entitled to much undercurrent of unrest and dissatisfaction drove out of the Communist movement, he is owns the one room wooden schoolhouse, the general store, the in the official note. It is to be regretted, how.
among the common people. When she is sure only at best a mediocrity.
more than they have and the more militant they little wooden church and all the streets and sidewalks, bullt ever, that Cardenas does not act similarly with that the ticke collector has left and that they entirely out of boards. The men and boys, needless to say, work are the more will they get.
respect to the workers of the United States. are alone, the daughter of a middle aged work.
for the company and the families are constantly in debt to the DOWN WITH THE For him to rely on maneuvering with the Roose man with whom Silver has been talking asks concern for food, clothing and rent.
velt Administration condemns him in advance him in a low volce: GEORGIAN SWINE!
Few of the parents can write even their names, while most of the children have never seen a street car or train and haven Expropriate the Railroads to defeat. It is to be hoped that in the future he Do you believe in Trotsky or Stalin. While Silver is visiting a kolhoz, a representhe faintest idea of what a talkie is like.
will put less energy into the composition of the who in your opinion is the better man, of The railroads of this country are in a des tative of the Communist Party arrives and elaborate munications the the two? Speak in a low volce, we can hear draws the nanas aside for conversation. Say VOTE FOR COUNTY POLITICIANS perate plight. Most of the companies are in the you all right.
the workers upon the arrival of the official: hands of receivers; there are more miles of road Department, and will address himself to the The turpentine toilers together with rallroad workers, store This question after years of Trotsky exile We ll see that he is well watched; maybe he U. workers and farmers, the victims, jointly now in bankruptcy than at any previous time.
clerks, factory employes and farmers in the Waycross area follow, and Stalin bloody repressions constitutes, toa Communist sent by that Gruzinskala swinla almost religiously, the county political bosses at the polls. Newith the Mexican people, of the exactions of What shall be done? The operators have a gether with the warning speak in a low voice. Georgian swine. groes, of course, are barred from voting except in presidential imperialism for which Hull speaks. one of the major topics among all the people simple solution. Reduce the wages of the workThe manager of the kolhoz is suspected of years. Toilers of Valdosta, Dublin, Rome, Thomaston and other with whom Silver talks. Trotsky to them still small Georgia cities give similar support to their county bosses.
ers by fifteen per cent.
symbolizes the revolution and the struggle for being a bit of a Trotskyist by a member of Consequently the arguments alred over the Reorganization Are the workers to blame for the condition socialism, Stalin the reaction. After one of the the Communist Party loyal to Stalin because What the Army Is For of the roads? All they did was to work; they Bill, Supreme Court changes and other New Deal pollcles by carefully staged street demonstrations which the kolhoz is run on sound Ynes and the manSenator Georgia, Camp and former Governor Talmadge were of had no voice in the management of the industry, constitute part of Stalin propaganda machine, ager is very popular with the workers and little moment to the tenant farmers and workers in most sections they had nothing one of the workers conndes his sentiments to say about the methods of Surprising to most citizens would be of Georgia. For this reason, it was difficult for staff correspondpeasants of the kolhoz. But he does not report Silver. First he tells a very disheartening story the contents of the General Staff White Paper operating the financial arrangements, the pay, ents to prophesy the primary winner.
of the miserable conditions under the his susplclons to the In the evening Georgia masses are ment of interest. When times were good and a thorough plan for suppressing civil disregime, the scarcity of food, the lack of freedom, when more than a thousand gather to hear politicians. They are dia. and tired of the big time they feel that things are not the owners of railroad bonds and stocks received order in the In it every large city is di the constant spying, the diffculty in smashing speeches by Silver and two members of the as they should be, but they are groping in the dark.
tremendous amounts as interest on their investvided into possible battle zones. Paved high the bureaucracy. Silver asks the worker if he Communist Party, the following incldent ocWhat is true of Georgia also applies to North Carolina, ments, the workers did not share in the huge South Carolina and Alabama. The farmers and workers of these way intersections throughout the are isn painting too gloomy a picture of the future.
curs: Grisha an Old Bolshevik begins speak States are ripe for militant leadership and a militant working profits. They were only there to do the work. marked down for airplane runways. That Ing. Comrades, bring you greetings and a class program.
But when the dividends on stocks and interest officers mull their White Paper a great deal TROTSKY message from the proletariat who conquered on bonds are not received regularly, the bosses of the time and talk about it none of the time, and now hold power in the Soviet Union.
can see no other solution than to lower the is due of course to the fact that no citizen He is interrupted by a baritone voice: Dolol SAVE THE 16 FROM JAIL!
standards of the workers.
would like to think about it any of the time.
Gruzinskala Swinla. Down with the Georgian Sixteen young workers, arrested at relief bureau, Let no one think that the workers of the From feature story on operations of the swine. Several volces shout, Shut up, Peter, face jail sentences.
industry have received very high wages. The Army in Time magazine, August 22.
he not going to speak about Stalin.
MEET THEM ALL AT THE The chairman restores order and Grisha glves DEFENSE SOCIAL over a year work. It took or the confines of the old North a short speech without once mentioning Stalin.
ganizational form at the St. Paul Central Drivers District Council, He gets a great ovation.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. 8:30 conference of the North Central becoming a provisional over theat 916 NINTH AVENUE District Drivers Council on Janu road conference. That meeting Later the manager of the kolhoz in pointing out with local pride the humane rules and wellAuspices of the Lubin Defense Commillee.
North and South Dakota, Ne and submitted them to the Labor ordered condition of the kolhoz and justitsins braska and Kansas City, Missouri, Relations Bonrd of the American the fact that against the Soviet law he had (Continued from page 1)
a homeless worker who had been unjustly deactively participating, and Tulsa, Trucking Association.
prived of his pusaport G. a sentence by a practical working agree Oklahoma, cooperating, On the basis of the contract equivalent to death by starvation) says: Even ment. As many companies are beMore Unions Join proposals, the unions in Ohio, InStalin would be safe and properly treated here CELINE Death on the Installment Plan ing organized for the first time, as long as he only claimed the rights of any In the latter part of the same diana and Michigan joined the and even the unions are unacordinary man.
BALABANOFF My Life as a Rebel customed to working on such a Minneapolis with a committee of that of the St. Louis, Missouri month, there was a conference in union group. The next entry was (Continued in the next Issue. Reservation Accepted vast scale, it is to be expected Wisconsin locals, resulting 00 DEPOSIT in teamsters and with them the bal15c FIRST DAYS that many details will have to be Wisconsin adherence to the proance of the Missouri locals. The 3c DAY THEREAFTER handled as the problems appear. gram and a meeting projected final entry into the North CenTHE RUSSIAN WORKERS OWN STORY, By LABOR BOOK SHOP for March in Chicago. The Chitral Area Negotiating Committee The task of securing the North cago meeting represented an or was that of the Louisville, KenHe Symbolizes Revolution to Boris Silver, 251 pp. London, George Allen 28 East 12th Street ST 0567 Central Area contract tool well ganizational expansion beyond tucky, Local.
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