Socialist Appeal SPECIAL. MAY DAY EDITION 54th ANNIVERSARY OF EIGHT PAGES MAY DAY Official Weekly Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International Vol. IV, No. 17 NEW YORK, APRIL 27, 1940 FIVE (5) CENTS The Only War Worth Fighting For Is Is the War of the Workers Against the Bosses!
MAY DAY MANIFESTO of the DOWN TOOLS MAY NITO Workers of America, join with us in cele complete the process of linking Canada to Wall all organized labor. That is how he prepares his brating May Day, the day dedicated to the in Street in place of London. Washington and Lon war for democracy.
ternational solidarity of the working class and don embassies in Tokyo are at swords points PWA has been wiped out, WPA is cut to the to the struggle of the labor movement for a as they cross and double cross each other in ma bone. Why? To find additional funds for the better world neuvers with Japan.
army and navy, and to put the unemployed in Join with us in pledging on this day that the The United States profited by the first world such misery that occupation as soldiers may apworkers in every country are our brothers, that war to emerge as the chief world power. Rue pear preferable. Day plans provide that the whether they speak French or German or Italian fully remembering that bear hug of Uncle Sam unemployed, the worst victims of capitalism, or Russian or English the workers in all lands as ally, the Anglo French imperialists despair shall be the first to be used for cannon fodder.
belong together in one united band against their ingly calculate what the degree of subservience All in the name of democracy.
oppressors. Long live the international solidar will be which American aid will leave them in Despite all the lying propaganda of governity of Labor against all the bosses, democratic this time.
ment and press, radio and pulpit and movies, or fascist!
America Sixty Families go toward war much of the real truth is clear to the American Join with us in the firm resolve that, come solely for their own interests, to add still further masses. That is why every poll of sentiment what may, the American working class will not to the gigantic share of the world markets, shows majorities opposed to American particisurrender to the war mongers; that in the sources of raw materials and manpower which pation in the war. peace time which is still left and in the war they already control.
But it is not enough to be against the war.
time which the government and the bosses have For this is the epoch of the death agony of The American workers must also know how to already planned down to the last detail, we shall world capitalism. The richest ruling class in the fight effectively against the war. That is why continue on every front the struggle of the world is in no way exempt from the agony and illusory notions about preventing war under capworking class against the bosses and their gov decay. The capitalist system cảnnot even feed its italism, such as pacifism and isolationism, are ernment. No surrender of labor rights and la wage slaves in the richest country in the world. so dangerous. Those who tell the workers that bor just demands in the name of patriotism! In its own vast markets it cannot sell its prod the present, capitalist United States can stay out Tens of millions of our brothers have been ucts or invest its capital. It is driven by its inner of a warring world are deluding the workers.
stuffed into uniforms and guns thrust into their contradictions to find new fields of investment Those who preach pacifism are saying that the hands to shoot each other down. Let us dedi and markets. But the world is already divided, workers should not join in the just war of the cate ourselves this day to put an end to this and re division can only come by force of arms. working class against their oppressors at home.
slaughter of workers by workers. If many of us That is what this war is about.
Isolationists and pacifists are thus in reality eneare doomed to die, then let us die in the one war mies of the real struggle against imperialist war, worth fighting for the war of the international Hands Off the Soviet Union!
We are pot pacifists or isolationists. We beworking class against the international capital. As the imperialists nhúngrily tasti about for olievesin. car parts up. a. fight against the war.
new infusions of blood for their drying veins, The ority fetiable highters against the war are There is no need to repeat this year the warntheir eyes fall upon the Soviet Union. There onethose who are grimly prepared to fight against ings which we have uttered on previous May sixth of the earth surface was removed from war not only in peace time when it easy and Days that the capitalist class, in its death agimperialist exploitation by the Revolution of safe enough but AFTER the United States ony, will pile upon the workers in addition to November, 1917. For 22 years the capitalist enters the war. We believe in fighting against the prevailing hunger and unemployment the world has pressed from all sides upon the Soviet war not only when the bosses still concede us final horror of war. For the war is now here.
Union; their pressure has succeeded in producthat legal right, but also when they try to take Not only in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, ing a Stalin, the antithesis of all that the revolu away that right but also in America.
tionary government of Lenin and Trotsky stood Roosevelt no longer even makes a pretense of for. Imperialist pressure has found in Stalin an It is the Fight Against Capitalism neutrality. The airplane factories of Los Angeles ally and tool who serves now one imperialist Join with us this May Day in resolving to and Connecticut are as closely linked with the Allied war machine as those of Manchester and group, now another, according to the pressure fight against the war in peace time and in warexerted upon him. But imperialist pressure has time.
Montreal. The great daily press, Democratic and not yet succeeded in breaking down the nation Once you clearly understand this much, the Republican alike, is openly taking sides in the alized property created by the Revolution; con rest follows. The struggle against war is not, as war.
sequently it has not succeeded in bringing back the pacifists and isolationists describe a sepWar Like Acts of the Government into the orbit of imperialism the territories of arate task. No, the struggle against war is the the Soviet Union.
The government takes steps hitherto unthinkstruggle against capitalism in all concrete Despite the degeneration wrought by Stalin, forms. It is the fight for labor rights and deable before a declaration of war. Hull declares the Soviet Union remains a workers state, part mands. It is the fight for JOB AND DEa virtual protectorate over the Dutch East Indies of the international working class, to be defended CENT LIVING FOR EVERY WORKER!
against Japan. Roosevelt freezes Danish Nornot only against Stalin but also against all the Open the idle factories and operate wegian holdings here, an act undreamed of by Wilson in the similar situation when Germany imperialists. This duty devolves especially upon them under workers control!
the American working class, for more than any occupied Belgium in 1914. moral embargo TWENTY BILLION DOLLAR The fight against war, we have said, is the other power, America Sixty Families will deagainst the Soviet Union is already in full force.
Federal public works and housing fight for all the demands, all the needs, of termine the turn of the war against the Soviet The Neutrality Act of 1939, whereby Roosevelt the workers, in war time as in peace time.
Union. In the name of democracy America program.
secured from Congress legalization of arms sales rulers will seek to re introduce capitalism it But that fight requires that all the various For the 30 hour week as a maximum to the Allies in return for a provision barring demands be unified around a central thought: all American ships from war zones, is cynically can only be done under the most bestial form of and 30 pay as a minimum for all fascism into the Soviet Union.
THE WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUviolated by government approved sales of nuworkers on all jobs!
TION merous ships to dummy foreign corporations.
Roosevelt Persecutes Trade Unions Thirty dollar weekly old age and The war has demonstrated, if we needed New Dealers and Old Dealers, Republicans and disability pensions!
it proved again, that this world is an indivisDemocrats, the dominant section of the ruling war for democracy? America Sixty Famible whole which must be dealt with as a class is moving deliberately toward entry into ilies are preparing the way by the most vicious All war funds to the unemployed! whole. No country can solve its problem the war.
and systematic hounding of the trade unions people referendum on any and alone, and no working class can do it alone.
What for? To help England and France prethat has ever taken place in this country. Already all wars! The right to vote to all 18 or The workers require a PARTY OF THE serve democracy?
over 500 union officers are under criminal indictment by the Department of Justice, thouover. Old enough to fight old enough WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. War Between Slavemasters sands of others are slated for indictment, the to vote!
The party that the workers need is NOT the American sections of the Labor and SoFor every free white Englishman, there are first trials are taking place. In a tricky move to No secret diplomacy! Open up the cialist (Second) International. There is no eleven black, brown or yellow slaves toiling with divide and conquer, the government at first pro State Department archives. Let the basic difference between the Judas Goats of in the British Empire; for every free French ceeded with indictments against AFL unions, truth be known!
the Second International in Europe, such as man, two or three are openly held in bondage in but now the first CIO union, the Fur Workers Build Workers Defense Guards, the Leon Blum and Major Atlee, and their the colonies. Some 560 millions one quarter of International, has fallen victim to this rust the earth population live in the democraAmerican brothers, such as Green and Lewis, busting campaign, its officers speedily convicted. only weapon which can defend the cies colonies under conditions no less terrible and the patriotic poodle dogs of the Social Other CIO unions will soon follow.
workers and their unions and parties Democratic Federation.
than those in Germany. The Anglo French alli And all this is only the beginning. It is an from the vigilante and fascist gangs! Nor can the American workers for a moance is fighting Hitler solely over the question open secret that the government M Day plans For an Independent Labor Party! ment imagine that the real fight against war who is to be the slavemaster that what the provide for an outright dictatorship over the An end to all deals with boss parties can be led by the American section of the war is about. In waging this war the demo unions, imprisonment for strike leaders, etc. The Communist International of Stalin. The cratic imperialists progressively rob the work Dies Committee is merely an advance scout for for a party of the workers, based on revolutionary struggle against war cannot ers at home of their few remaining liberties. the heavy artillery which is being brought up by the trade unions!
be waged, it can only be compromised and America Sixty Families are driving toward the government.
Is there enough money to give every betrayed, by those who are under the bloodwar with no real thought of solidarity with the The outlawing and smashing of last summer body a job and a decent living? Sure stained banner of the Kremlin.
British and French ruling families. On the con WPA strike, the imprisonment of the WPA there is! Wall Street is full of money: The American workers need a genuinely trary, they are using the war to push their al strike leaders in Minneapolis that is the harrevolutionary program and a stainless banlies out of South American markets and to binger of the future which Roosevelt plans for EXPROPRIATE THE 60 FAMILIES! ner. That is the program and the banner of the PARTY OF THE WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUTION, THE FOURTH INERNATIONAL, whose American section is the SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Given, by the accident of history, a little longer time to work in, we owe in return a special responsibility to our comrades in the rest of the world to the anti war fighters in Reynaud dungeons, to those BolshevikLeninists who have miraculously escaped with their lives in the concentration camp of Stalin, to our comrades struck down by suppression in the British and French colonies, to the heroic German internationalists hounded by the Gestapo. Whatever time is still left here must be utilized to the utmost.
That means, above all, to appeal directly to you, the workers of America, to steel and harden yourselves for the struggles that lie ahead. We know that if you remain true to your own class interests, if you defend the rights of the working class and fight for its needs, you will conclude by joining with us and our comrades throughout the world to put an end to this world of war and hunger and insecurity and build a new world of peace, security and freedom the new world of Socialism!