SOCIALIST APPEAL OCTOBER 19, 1940 SOCIALIST APPEAL VOL. IV No. 42 Saturday, October 19, 1940 Publahod Woolly by the SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASSN.
at 116 University Place, New York, Telephone: Algonquin 8547 Who Owns This Country? Siqueiros Is Mexican Agent Of the GPU Editorial Board: FELIX MORROW ALBERT GOLDMAN General Manager: RUTH JEFFREY No Home Guards!
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1939 entered me at New York, under the aus second classmatter December 4, Act.
March Fight with the Socialist Workers Party for: JOB AND DECENT LIVING FOR EVERY WORKER OPEN THE IDLE FACTORIES. OPERATE THEM UNDER WORKERS LOL. TWENTY. BILLION DOLLAR FEDERAL PUBLIC WORKS AND HOUSING PROGRAM. THIRTY. THIRTY 80. WEEKLY MINIMUM WAGE 30 HOUR WEEKLY MAXIMUM FOR ALL WORKERS ON ALL JOBS. 30 WEEKLY OLD AGE AND DISABILITY PENSION. EXPROPRIATE THE SIXTY FAMILIES. ALL WAR FUNDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED. PEOPLE REFERENDUM ON ANY AND ALL WARS NO SECRET DIPLOMACY.
10. AN INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY.
11. WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS AGAINST VIGILANTE AND FASCIST ATTACKS.
12. FULL SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC EQUALITY FOR THE NEGRO PEOPLE.
By GRANDIZO MUNIS During the days following the May 24th assault on Trotsky house, when the police had not yet arrested any of the accomplices, the paid press and writers of Stalin GPU spread the infamous theory of self assault. Trotsky himself, according to their version, had ordered some hundred of shots to be fired. in order to create difficulties for the government. Upon Trotsky declaring in his first declarations that David Alfaro Siqueiros could perhaps make important revelations on the assault, Siqueiros indignantly denounced the calumny and even promised to appear before the authorities any time they wished. The GPU believed at that time that none of the accomplices would be detained and that through its powerful economic resorces it would be able to put over the theory of self assault.
But the majority of those implicated in the May 24 assault were arrested and the guilt of Siqueiros completely established. Far from presenting himself in order to give an explanation as he had promised, the indignant assailant hid himself and waited for the advice of the GPU. Finding it impossible to uphold the stupid self assault story it became necessary to fabricate another explanation. From his hiding place, Siqueiros began to change his language.
In the extract from the letter sent to Gerieral Nunez, published August 27, as well as that published in Hoy September 14, the theory of self assault gave way to the very justified assault on the house of Trotsky.
Siqueiros did not make this declaration until after the discoveries of the authorities had annihilated the theory of self assault.
Why was Siqueiros silent while the GPU placed in circulation the infamous calumny of self assault. Why did he acquiesce with this same silence when the GPU tried to stain the memory of the murdered secretary of Trotsky, presenting him as an accomplice in the assault? Why did he not at that time explain the very justified assault. If he had done it then, all the world would have believed that he acted on is own initiative and not on a salary from the GPU.
Our Military Policy HOW THE NEGROES IN THE SOUTH VIEW THE ARMY DRAFT Much publicity is being given in the capitalist press to a few conscientious objectors to conscription a group of theological students in New York, a minister in Minnesota who have announced they will not register. The capitalist press is not at all averse to giving these individuals such publicity. Thereby they create the picture: either go along 100 with the present conscription system or make the ineffective, impotent gesture of the conscientious objectors. The capitalist press would like you to believe that these are the only two alternatives. The capitalists would like you to be.
lieve that, because they know the conscientious objectors can do nothing to preyent, the war or the oppression and exploitation of the workers by the military machine. In a world of war and militarism, the pacifist idea of being unarmed cannot possibly appeal to the people.
But our program universal military training under control of the trade unions gets no publicity from the capitalist press. On the contrary, the press organizes a conspiracy of silence against our program. For ours really meets the needs of the workers. As against the pacifists, it firmly insists upon the necessity of training the workers in the use of arms, and insists that all shall be trained.
But as against the capitalists, our program calls for the control of military training by the workers own organizations. It calls for federal appropriations for the establishment and equipment of military training camps to be run by the trade unions.
It proposes that in these training camps not only shall the workers be given instructions to make them able and skillful soldiers, but that the outthe left foot of the government whose right foot has just kicked them in the face. Whom are they fooling? Certainly not the government whose policy has just been enunciated in a most decisive and unambiguous way. Only the workers will be fooled by such whining. Get down to work! Work faster and harder! of manufacturing, mining, electric and gas utiliOn a program for the CIO members to follow Work longer hours for the same pay! This is ties, transportation and communication.
the theme song of all the bosses these days. 10, 000 persons (0. 008 per cent of the popu.
in enforcing union conditions against Bethlehem Get ready to fight! Defend yourselves against lation) own one fourth of all corporate stock in Steel, Ford, du Pont, Standard Oil, General Motors foreign aggression! The chorus of the super this country: 75, 000 (0. 06 per cent of the populaand the many, many other few who have tried to patriots chimes in. Day in, day out, both to tion) own one half of the stock held by individbuck the law (merely tried. the CIO News says gether call upon the workers to make all kinds uals.
nothing.
of sacrifices for the national defense program. The people are being urged to make sacrifices Now, unlike the plutocratic Parasites, John and militarize themselves in order to save Jones and Minnie Jones have to work in order to America for the Americans. But the official live. No job, no food for the family. While the Monopoly Committee informs us: Foreign inspeed up artists shout for more work, over vestors have a considerable stake in the ownerA determined effort is being made in Congress eleven millions still can get a job. Most of the ship of the 200 largest nonfinancial corporations.
to push through the Home Guard bill before adrest suffer from insecure, underpaid employment. At the end of 1937 their holdings of common journment. Under the terms of this bill new As a rule, workers don object to fighting stock totalled 1, 800, 000, 000 and of preferred armed force will be set up by the government to provided they re convinced that they re fighting stock 200, 000, 000. Capitalist exploitation, you replace the National Guard, which is being incor for a worth while cause. The trade unions strug see, is international in scope. But working class porated into the regular army.
gles prove that. Moreover, the military forces relations, according to the bosses, must remain The bill has met with objections from the na for every war in history have been recruited from within national boundaries!
tional office of the CIO, largely on the grounds the poor workers. That includes the present war. According to Mahoney, the committee is that it does not specify the precise function and But the workers want to be sure and they not trying to prove any preconceived thesis.
duties of the Home Guard.
ought to know who and what they re being But the facts tell their own story. Any thinking This objection is the least weighty of all which called upon to fight for. Are they to labor and person can draw the necessary conclusions from can be hurled at the proposal. WE KNOW WHAT risk their lives for their own benefit or for the these figures if he hasn any material motives for concealing them.
ITS EXACT FUNCTION WILL BE! All we have sake of enriching their exploiters? That the to do is study the record of National Guard ac question posed by the national defense program.
DIE FOR THESE PLUTOCRATS?
tivities.
LIGHT ON WHO OWNS AMERICA The bulk of the productive facilities of the The following facts from the official Army ReA floodlight has been cast this question by United States are owned and controlled by a port in the Congressional Record, February 14, the report just issued by Senator Mahoney, small band of multi millionaires, with the prince1936, should prove enlightening on the subject.
chairman of the Temporary National Economic ly families of Rockefeller, DuPont and Mellon They cover the first, the most progressive four Committee, which has been investigating monoat their head. These families, which number years of the New Deal.
polies for the past two pears without doing any.
about 60 in all, are the real rulers in this DemocThe National Guard, financed and equipped thing about it. But the information they have racy of the Almighty Dollar. These findings of with federal funds and under regular army officers, gathered should interest every worker. Here the Monopoly Committee officially confirm the conducted their greatest strike breaking role in what they ve found.
picture of America 60 Families presented in Ferdinand Lundberg book of the same name.
history between 1933 and 1936. From 1933 to 1934, Three American family groups, the Rocke12, 536 Guardsmen saw active duty; 8, 319, or 66 fellers, the DuPonts and the Mellons, own shares It is for the sake of this bunch of plutocrats worth almost 1, 400, 000, 000 which are so placed that the working people are being asked to work percent in strikes. From 1934 to 1935, of the 30, 201 as to give them considerable influence, if not and to fight for in the present war. These profittroops called out, 24, 326, or 80 percent were used control over fifteen of the 200 largest noneers will be the principal beneficiaries of the exto break strikes.
financial corporations in America.
tra labor and the blood shed by the working In 1934, 12 states in 23 strikes, and in 1935, 20 masses. The national defense program is the prostates in 73 strikes, employed the National Guard Thirteen family groups, including these gram of these millionaire monopolists who seek to intimidate American workers. During the nathree, have holdings worth 2, 700, 000, 000, repreto use the workers to maintain their hold over tional textile strike in 1934, nine states, seven unsenting eight per cent of the stock of these 200 their present fields of enrichment and to extend der Democratic Party administrations, used the corporations. The twenty largest shareholdings them throughout the world.
National Guard. Over 50 workers were killed and in each of the 200 corporations accounted on the That why we re opposed to that patriot average for nearly a third of the stock. In the 500 seriously wounded in this one strike.
and profiteer program. If the workers must average corporation the majority of the voting In fact, in the textile strike even the National work and fight, let them do so for a country that power was concentrated in about per cent of Guard seemed insufficient for Roosevelt. On Sepbelongs to them, with an army they can control, the stockholders.
tember 14, 1934, he threatened to send regular commanded by people they can trust their own These 200 corporations account for the bulk labor representatives.
army troops against the Rhode Island strikers.
After citing this fact, the New York Times of that date reports further: Acting under secret orders from Washington, detachments of regular army troops. have prepared for possible service in the Rhode Island strike disorders. While. awaiting orders from Roosevelt. regular army troops. were being swiftly concentrated for possible movement to the strike zone. The same edition of the Times in the main editorial, approving. This remarkable article ap of what happened the last time. myselt a bunch of fun. All the ly described this act as an answer from the Presipeared in the Baltimore AFRO They have no physical fear of dy fighting ll ever do will be right dent which may not please Mr. Gorman (the strike AMERICAN, Negro weekly, ing or getting injured, but, men here at home.
Aug. 31. chairman. tally, they re in a turmoil. They sense that this is another white Parks Lily white These facts are sufficient evidence of what Roosevelt has in mind for the new Home Guards Before left Birmingham In Louisiana, heard stories of man war in which the black man he proposes.
colored men already conscripted, will do the dirty work and the went with a group to see the statue of Vulcan, which is perchThe only protection the workers of this country of mules, already hustled into already feeding and taking care white man will get the benefit.
ed high on the outskirts of the Afraid to Refuse city. We went at night, and as are going to need is against the fascist gangs which camps and taught how to cook and They would like to refuse to we drove up where a lot of cars make bede so that they will be fight, but they re afraid of being were parked, the officer sald: the bosses are organizing against them. The only protection the workers have ever needed has been But, objected to my inform called cowards. They also like You made a mistake.
against the thugs, strike breakers, cops and troops to get a little advance consideraant, the conscription bill has not tlou. And a few that ve heard park, said one of the party. thought this was a public which the bosses and their government have used yet been passed, and may not be express themselves, would just It is a public park, snapped against them.
passed until January or at least love to be given a machine gun, the cop, but not a colored park.
That is a protection which the workers must until after the election.
In Birmingham was riding Don need to pass no bill, it down the street with a young man devise for themselves. Not the professional antiNew Unrest Evident the white folks decide to come right in the middle of the draft labor terror machine of the capitalists the Home after you, the man replied. And age. We were riding in a beauti The war may bring it quicker lot of people look for trouble.
Guards but a real protective army for labor, the I was you. wouldn be talk ful new car. red light stopped than it would have come other WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS That white folks business and us at a corner, and a muddy car wise but definitely a new senti somebody might hear you. Better with a Georgia license pulled ment is steadily gaining momen: button up your lips!
alongside.
tum in the South.
For no reason at all, except It is still in the talking stage, Can Hear Radios that, perhaps, he resented seeing but is nevertheless indicative The boss press and the CIO are now competing In one little Mississippi town, a better looking car than a mass dissatisfaction. The radio, in a game of Button! Button! Who got the but in which no colored person has his, the white man yelled at my travel by automobile and educa tion are making people want ton? over the exact meaning of the decision of a radio, the white people have friend: You. agreed to keep the latest news the Circuit Court of Appeals in the Fordthings they never wanted before.
Sees Chance for Revenge away from colored by refusing to And the crackers are scared, case.
let them listen in to radio news My friend reply was most an old man told me on a recent The court defense of the right of Ford to cirin stores, homes and filling sta poetic and so was the crank Ashing trip. That why they handle which he waved at the don want us to discuss thnigs.
tions.
culate anti union literature to his employees is headlined by the capitalist press as a victory for don know whether to be man as ho dared him to get out The only thing the war does lieve it or not. an aged man told Later, he said to me: only They don want to give the boys is make em more scared.
Ford and civil liberties.
The CIO shunted aside the real implications Germans aim to come over here hope go to the army and stay wing to fight with and they of this phase of the decision and concentrated on and put us colored folks back in there long enough to get my hands don dare leave the boys here slavery. We got to send our boys back to Birmingham and have fight. It tiekles me! m coming at home while they go away and that part which ordered Ford to cease and desist cross the water to fight em.
from discouraging membership in the auto workers union or from intimidating union members.
Propaganda Effective The free speech decision really means that The opinion is fairly general that the United States should and Ford can continue to advise his workers against joining a union so long as he does not say in so will get into the war on England side, and that it is only a matter Branch Pledges many words or get fired and slugged by my ser of weeks or months before our vice men.
boys will be aboard ships bound The following is a list of the tentative pledges for the Trotsky Ford never had to put that threat into writing.
for Europe to fight the Germans. Memorial Fund made by the branch delegations at the Sept. 27 29 He wrote his or else with spitting machine guns The fear of Hitler crops up in Chicago Plenum Conference of the Socialist Workers Party. Many against the Ford Hunger March in 1932, and with the most unexpected places. of the delegations indicated that their pledges would be revised uppreacher was exhorting his con wards after they secured the agreement of the branch membership, clubs, fists, brass knuckles, blackjacks and other gregation to get on the right side number of branches have not yet sent in their pledges.
assorted persuaders on union organizers and memof the road a few Sundays ago The APPEAL will carry a scoreboard regularly, announcing the This ain no time for foolish amounts turned in by the branches. All pledges are to be paid in bers exercising their right of free expression durness, he thundered. You bet full by January 1st.
ing the more recent cio attempts to organize the Ford domain. That or else stares a Ford worker ter hurry to Jesus or Mr. Hitler will get you.
Branch Amount in the face every moment on the line, as Ford From a man in the field, who was Akron 10. 00 ten thousand eyed private army scrutinizes each selling watermelons at a nickel Boston 100. 00 detail of the workers conduct.
each: m trying to get rid of em before Hitler comes.
Chicago and Indiana Harbor 150. 00 If the CIO leaders think that this decision reIf a nickel too much, ll take a Cleveland 70. 00 duces the difficulty of organizing Ford in any couple of store made cigarettes.
Detroit 150. 00 degree, they and more particularly the auto workFlint.
200. 00 ers are in for a sad experience.
Fear Instilled Los Angeles 150. 00 The recent agreement of Attorney General On Saturday nights, around Milwaukee. 00 Jackson and CIO leader Hillman to the principle cafes and restaurants or juke Minneapolis and St. Paul 1, 000. 00 joints, where talk is usually loud Newark 150. 00 of permitting labor law violators to obtain war and liquor uncommonly bad on New York City 1, 000. 00 contracts gives more than a hint of how much the tonsils, the admonition to Portland 10. 00 support the government will give the Ford workers button up your lips is heard San Francisco 100. 00 when they insist on enforcement of the court order. frequently now. An air of fearful Toledo 50. 00 Ford will be organized only after every wheel waiting seems to hover over young Youngstown men now in the prime of life.
50. 00 in his huge kingdom ceases to move and stays They have heard from fathers motionless until he signs a real union contract and brothers and uncles the story TOTAL 3, 195. 00 standing workers, chosen by their comrades, shall The Ford Decision be given the further instruction needed to become officers. We want the workers to have their own flesh and blood, the men they trust, as officers over them and not the crew of West Point and citizens camp reactionaries whom the government will name.
Ours is a program which defends the interests of the workers everywhere not only in the factory but also in the military forces. The program of the pacifists does neither.
TROTSKY SAVED SIQUEIROS LIFE On the contrary, his admission of the assault was not made until after the police had identified Siqueiros as its immediate director. The GPU had to consider then two possibilities: as a political goal, the GPU was interested in utilizing Siqueiros to the maximum; as the possessor of important secrets it was interested in assassinating him and trying once more to cast the responsibility. the Trotskyists. In this respect it is possible to assert that Siqueiros owes his life to Trotsky. In publicly declaring the likelihood of, Siqueiros being assassinated, Trotsky made it virtually impossible, and the GPU had to decide at least provisionally to utilize Siqueiros as a political tool.
Due to this decision Siqueiros sent his various letters to the press.
Then began the new turn. The authors of the assault who had propagated the theory of self assault now dedicated themselves to justifying the assault.
They were obliged to carry on this juggling because of the discoveries of the police and the declaration of Trotsky. Yesterday even the Communist Party and the friends of the GPU in El Popular had to swear in cvery tone that terrorism is far from their methods.
Today Siqueiros, their friend and long time collaborator, tries to justify terrorism. The universal evidence that Siqueiros worked and still works under orders of the GPU and the fact that the GPU is under Stalin orders brings upon Stalin and his mercenaries throughout the world admission of terrorist activity.
In the final attempt at falsification, Siqueiros will try to present himself to us as a revolutionary terrorist.
STALIN, THE ARCH DESPOT His friends of the Voice of Mexico and Popular will assist with amiable silence, but it will not be necessary to wait for the verdict of history in order to determine between Trotsky and Stalin who was the revolutionary, who was the counter revolutionary. The supporter of Hitler in the present imperialist war, the oppressor of the Soviet proletariat, the grave digger of the Spanish revolution Stalin is no longer even the spectre with which Hitler used to frighten his enemies, France and England. His actions against Trotsky and the Trotskyist movement have received the approval of all the enemies of the workers. In the last instance the terrorist action of Siqueiros like that of Jacson, the assassin of Trotsky, like that which Stalin wages against the Russian worker, is the same as the terrorism of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, or any other reactionary despot.
The similarity between the declarations of Siquei.
ros and those of Jacson is proof that the inspirer is one and the same. One of the assassins pretends that his crime was that of a revolutionary against reactionary elements; the other that he was disillusioned with Trotsky, and decided to free humanity from him; the one says he acted on his own will, the other that he does not even understand what GPU signifies, and both finally unite in glorifying Stalin.
Unless they are forced by the weight and the skill of the investigation, Siqueiros as well as Jacson will not deviate a single hair from the fundamental interest of the GPU, that is, defamation of Trotsky and the movement founded by him. This will add one more proof of the dependence of both upon Stalin. Siqueiros will try perhaps to perfect some of the calumnies already elaborated by his cohorts in the Voz de Mexico and El Popular, but they will turn out to be nothing but generalities without foundation since neither he nor anyone else can cast the least spot upon the political activity of Trotsky.
The more they calumniate Trotsky the more they prove their complete subjection to the GPU.
The sentence of the proletariat has already been passed: that Siqueiros and Jacson as tools of Stalin have assassinated one of the greatest revolutionaries of all times. All that is lacking is the discovery by Mexican justice of the immediate superiors of Jacson and Siqueiros.
Mexico City October 10, 1940 Covering Up Hillman TROTSKY MEMORIAL FUND We had looked forward with keen interest to the latest issue of the CIO News, which we hoped would contain a fiery denunciation of the antilabor stand taken by the War and Navy Departments, the National Defense Commission, Attorney General Jackson and Sidney Hillman, in the matter of awarding war contracts to labor law violators.
True enough, the paper was filled with loud lamentations, but it also contained a most devious cover up for Hillman, whose role in the scandalous affair was the basest of all. From the news account of the incident, one gets the impression that Hillman was a simple innocent. Editorially, the CIO News protects Hillman with a cloak of silence.
The only weapon the CIO leadership musters with which to fire back at its enemies is a plaintive plea, entitled Why Not Obey. asking the hardened barons of big business to be good fellows and observe the law. After all, cites the CIO News. Most American employers law abiding citizens. Huh?
The editorial then goes on to say. If the government will refuse to be blackmailed by law breaking anti labor corporations; if it will firmly insist on contracts being executed in a lawful manner, none of these corporations will dare to refuse defense business. They will all take the simpler course of obeying the law.
Thus do the spokesmen of the CIO appeal to