SOCIALIST APPEAL JANUARY 18, 1941 SOCIALIST APPEAL VOL. No. Saturday, January 18, 1941 PuHehed Toebly by the BOCIALIST APPRAL PUBLISHING ARBX. 116 University Place, New York, Telephone: Algonquin 8647 There War In Canada. Lovestone Quits; Against The Trade Union The Fruit Of Lack Of Principles Editorial Board: FELIX MORROW ALBERT GOLDMAN General Manager: RUTH JEFFREY But the Systematic Terror Has Failed to Break Down the Workers and French Canadians Opposition to the War Subacriptions: 00 per year: 00 for alx months.
Forelgn: 00 per year, 50 for six months. Bundle orders: cento per copy in the United States: centa per copy in all forelgn countries. Single coples: venta. Reentered a second ce matter December IDI. at the post once at New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
FIGHT WITH THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY ON THE WAR FRONT: For: Military training of workers, financed by the gov.
ernment, under control of the trade unions. The establishment of special officers training camps, financed by the government and controlled by the trade unions, to train workers to become officers. Confiscation of all war profits all company books to be open for trade union inspection. Expropriation of all war industries and their operation under workers control. Trade union wages for all workers drafted into the army. Full equality for Negroes in the armed forces Down with Jim Crowism. An end to secret diplomacy. peoples referendum on any and all wars.
In rejecting military training of any kind whatsoever, these deluded young people are, in reality, denying the realities and consequences of the class struggle. In the end, what will remain is their denial of the class struggle. Then they will support military training and war on behalf of the capitalist class.
The next stage in the degeneration of the Socialist Party is already apparent. We cite two instances.
The National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party has adopted a resolution on the entry of Greece into the imperialist war. Its key sentence is: We rejoice that the Greek people have succeeded in administering a setback to the fascist armies. Call, December The Greek army of Dictator Metaxas, as everybody knows except Norman Thomas, consists in large part of British troops, British airplaines, British technicians, and the British Navy.
Greece as a separate entity does not exist in this war. The only question that events were called upon to answer was whether Greece would be part of the German war machine or part of the BritishAmerican war machine. Greece is no more identifiable as an independent agent in this war than Serbia was in the last war.
And if Thomas rejoices that the British forces in the Mediterranean have thus set back the Italians, why shouldn he, logically, rejoice if Wall Street army helps along?
That the real logic of Thomas position, and he has already recognized it by taking the next step. The Call of January 18 announces its support of the pro war propaganda organization headed by Matthew Woll under the phony title, The American Labor Committee to Aid British Labor.
The Call concedes that Woll committee could be misused and could be made to serve interventionist sentiment in the United States, but hypocritically closes its eyes to this real role of Woll committee and declares: In the absence of any evidence of such intent at this time, the Call commends the AFL Committee. What kind of evidence is Thomas waiting for? Matthew Woll riding down Broadway in a tank, hell bent for Berlin?
It a rather touching picture, virginal Norman being deceived and misled by the sly Matthew Woll, but if we are ever called on to testify we shall have to say that Norman was more than willing and knew what he was letting himself in for.
The following a first hand account of the treatment of war comes from the French Can.
the workers and unionists in Canada during the present war, adians, who are 41 per cent of and of the growing resistance to the war in this sister democ the Canadian population. There racy to the United States. It is part of a report to the were bitter draft rots in Quebec and Montreal, and today there are SOCIALIST APPEAL from a Canadian comrade.
TORONTO, Canada You may be surprised to learn that diers in the Canadian army.
only 2, 000 French Canadian solone union local here, with 160 members, advertised for an organizer in the capitalist press. You will understand why, when I have learned that there are 000 soldiers in concentration tell you about present conditions here in Canada.
Unionists are afraid to accept jobs as organizers because camps for their refusal to go over.
seas. Some cases of suicide even a little militant labor action means a jail sentence. among young soldiers have also Civil liberties are at a very low ebb in Canada today. The been disclosed. This will give you government has taken advantage of the war to deliver smashing an idea of the opposition which blows at labor. 71 leaders of unions are in concentration camps exists here to fighting for British here. The charge. they demand imperialism.
ed too much from the bosses! anyone here to join the army.
The government has had to In the town of Scarsborough all Pat Sullivan, leader of the AFL seamen union was arrested right the unemployed youth have been yield to the opposition of the the ship owners. He had asked consists today almost entirely of ly English sections of Canada, if in the midst of negotiations with forced into the army. The town French Canadians to some extent.
For instance, in the predominant.
for better terms in the new con old men and women.
tract than were in the old one. You can tell how desperate the you are caught distributing anticriminal and treasonable offense government has become to break war leaflets or even anion organin Canada today.
down the resistance to army servicing leaflets, you will receive Canadian labor is becoming in ice, when it now pays 39 per from months to years in jail.
creasingly aroused by this ants month to a single man, and family But in French Canada, you will labor attitude of the government. men with a wife and two children receive only 10 days confinement All labor organizations have been set as much as 28 per week. In for the same offense.
driven underground with the ex the S, hear that ordinary One of the hopeful signs here ception of the (pro war) Com soldiers get only 21 a month for is the growing sentiment for an monwealth Federation.
the first four months, and then independent labor party. There It is not only the government 30 a month from then on, even is a movement for this now on foot, which is strongest in the which persecutes the workers, but married men.
many reactionary trade union of The greatest opposition to the AFL unions.
fcials are alding in this offensive.
For instance, in a recent election in the International Ladies Gar ment Workers Union local, the leaders arbitrarily prohibited the nomination of alleged Stalinists.
These lenders crawl on their bel.
lies at every opportunity to show their servility to the government.
CANADA HOME GUARD We have received reports from ALL anti Colour legislation; full We read about the moves to England of the trial of Dr. Yus rights of citizenship.
start the Home Guard in the sof Dadoo, an Indian, charged in Well, home defense Johannesburg, South Africa, with the rich get richer and the poor Don support this war, where guard exists now in Canada. It publishing and distributing a get killed.
has already helped the bosses in leaflet which reads as follows: The government could not several strikes. It is a regular War? An appeal to all nonwitch hunt outfit, which has ar European people of South Africa. columnist or sympathizer of with being a fifth rested anyone at the slightest op: You are being asked to support the Nazis. No fuscist would ever se realisht. in. who volces the least bit the war for: Freedom, Justice demand the things for which Dathe government.
Despite the feverish government democracy?
fruits of freedom, justice and these are the things the fascists want least of all (in which rewar propaganda campaigns, the Canadian people are generally op Poll Tax Laws What you enjoy is: Pass and spect you can tell them apart posed to the war. By people, white labour policy, low wages, segregation, from the democracies. mean particularly the workers So they charged him with puband the French Canadians. high rents, poverty, unemploy lishing a statement likely to inThe government is having a ment and vicious colour bar. cite resistance to the governhard time getting soldiers for laws.
ment war policy, and fined him over seas service. It has used We answered the call in 1914 25 pounds or one month impritwo methods to try to build the 18. What was our reward? Mis sonment, with an additional sus army, neither one being very sucery, starvation, unemployment. pended sentence of two months, cessful. The government forces. This time we must demand: The subject to good behavior. Dadoo all unemployed fathers oft relief right to live as human beings: reused to pay the fine.
until their sons join the army. the right to work in skilled It was stated that crowds of This has been more successful trades; recognition of African Indians, Africans and Europeans than raising the army pay, be trade unions; abolition of the demonstrated on his behalf at the cause it seems you can even pay White Labour Policy; abolition of trial.
AT HOME: For: British Jail Indian For Demanding Democracy job and decent living for every worker. Thirty thirty 30 weekly minimum wage 30 hour weekly maximum for all workers on all jobs. 30 weekly old age and disability pension. Full social, political and economic equality for the Negro people. Workers Defense Guards against vigilante and fascist attacks twenty billion dollar Federal public works and housing program to provide jobs for the unemployed. Expropriate the Sixty Families. An Independent Labor Party based on the Trade Unions. Workers and Farmers Government. The mood of the majority of the army officers reflects the reactionary mood of the ruling classes of the country, but in a much more concentrated form. The mood of the mass of the soldiery reflects the mood of the workers and farmers, but in a much weaker form; the bourgeoisie knows much better how to maintain contact with the officers than the proletariat with the soldiers. TROTSKY, WHITHER FRANCE? Page 100.
The New Stage As we go to press, word comes from Detroit that James Dewey, Federal labor mediator. has served an ultimatum on the United Auto Workers, demanding that the union call off within twenty four hours its strike against the Eaton Manufacturing Company. The ultimatum, he stated, was delivered on the authority of the National Defense Commission, including presumably, Sidney Hillman.
To show his impartiality. Dewey also ordered the company to put to work the men it had failed to re employ after a strike last December. The rehiring of these men was ONE of the issues in the present strike, but by no means the only one. The other issues between the company and the union, said Dewey, can be settled by negotiation after the plants are operating again.
Note that the union has no guarantee that even the one issue Dewey refers to, rehiring, will be settled before the strike is called off. On the contrary, the union is told by the government to call Coff its walk out regardless of what the company does. As for the other issues, every union man knows that when a company has refused to come to a general settlement before a strike, return to work without a general settlement means giving the company the whip hand in further negotiations. Every anti union employer in the country hereafter will stand pat and depend on the government to force the men back to work and endless negotiations over their grievances.
Roosevelt is taking off the velvet glove. With this ultimatum to the auto workers, a new stage of governmental action against the workers has begun.
They Were The Greatest Heroes Of The Last War The Lovestone group. Independent Labor League of America. has announced that it has dissolved, by decision of its recent national convention. In a Declaration announcing the end of the organization, it calls upon all radical groups to join forces in making a new start towards a genuine American democratic socialism. and to begin that new start by following the ILLA into limbo.
Presumably, with the death of the ILLA, its final Declaration is its last word on what the coming genuine American democratic socialism should be.
But God help the mariner who tries to sail by their directions!
In a word, the Lovestone Declaration is a complete confession of bankruptcy, which blusteringly tries to cover up its nakedness by the whining lie. Everybody else has failed too.
Among the ideologies the expiring Lovestoneites list as having failed is that of Bolshevism. The implication is conveyed that they, the Lovestoneites, tried the road of Bolshevism, and it proved a false road. lie made out of whole cloth.
The story of the Lovestone group is worth telling in some detail, for there is an important lesson to learn from it although scarcely the one that the Lovestoneites offer. That story was summarized by Comrade James Cannon in his pamphlet, The Struggle for a Proletarian Party, published in April 1940. He wrote then. In the terminology of the Marxist movement, unprincipled cliques or groups which begin a struggle without a definite program have been characterized as political bandits. classic example of such a from its beginning to its miserable end in the waters of American radicalism, is the group known as Lovestoneites. This group, which took its name from the characterless adventurer who has been its leader, poisoned and corrupted the American Communist movement for many years by its unprincipled and unscrupulous factional struggles, which were carried on to serve personal aims and personal ambi.
tions, or to satisfy personal grievances. The Love stoneites were able and talented people, but they had no definite principles. They knew only that they want ed to control the party regime. As with Abern, this question always occupied first place in their calculations; the political program of the moment was always adapted to their primary aim of solving the organization question satisfactorily. that is, in their favor. They were wild eyed radicals and ultra leftists when Zinoviev was at the head of the Comintern.
With the downfall of Zinoviev and the violent right swing of the Comintern under Bukharin, they became ardent Bukharinites as quickly and calmly as one changes his shirt. Due to an error in calculation, or a delay in information, they were behindhand in making the switch from Bukharin to Stalin and the frenzied leftism of the Third Period. To be sure, they tried to make up for their oversight by proposing the expulsion of Bukharin at the party convention they controlled in 1929. But this last demonstration of political flexibility in the service of rigid organizational aims came too late. Their tardiness cost them their heads. Their polities were always determined for them by external pressure. At the time of their membership in the Communist Party it was the pressure of Moscow. With their formal expulsion from the Comintern a still weightier pressure began to bear down upon them, and they gradually adapted themselves to it. Today this miserable and isolated clique, pottybourgeois to the core, is tossed about by bourgeois democratie public opinion like a feather in the breeze.
The Lovestoncites never had any independent program of their own. They were never able to develop one in the years since their separation from the of.
ficial Communist Party. Today their paper, the Workers Age, is hardly distinguishable from a journal of left liberalism. horrible example of the end result of unprincipled organizational politics.
The History of This Group Since Comrade Cannon wrote this, the Lovestoneites, pushed still further by bourgeois democratic public opinion, became above all advocates of allout aid to England.
The end of the Lovestoneites is the handwriting on the wall for their ilk. The Norman Thomas group.
coming ever closer to a pro British line (elsewhere in this issue we deal with their latest moves in this direction. is already little more than an appendage to Norman Thomas radio program. Even the traditional Social Democratic Federation appears to have little basis for an independent existence in the war situation; its frenzied cries for all out aid to Bri tain merely duplicate what Roosevelt does louder and more skillfully. And the group which most resembles the Lovestoneites in personal character and political methods, the Abern Shachtman Workers Party. sees its future mirrored.
Abern Shachtman united with Burnham merely on the question of the party regime a la Lovestone. Just like Lovestone, however, Abern Shachtman found themselves at the conclusion of this bloe the advocates of the politics of Burnham. Here is striking proof of the political law that groups and cliques which have no program of their own become the instruments of the program of others. Shachtman, who loudly protested that he was not advocating the anti Soviet position of Burnham, has now published his own position which turns out to be.
the position of Burnham.
The Lovestoneites did not conceal their warm sympathy for Burnham Shachtman. Here, they felt, were kindred spirits. They were right.
The war, Comrade Trotsky wrote shortly before his death, will destroy all such centrist organizations.
The debris will be cast aside and the arena cleared for the titanic struggle between the only two real forces in modern society: the bourgeois ruling class and the proletariat led by the revolutionary Bolshevik party. The quicker Lovestone and his kind leave the arena, the better for the revolutionary move.
ment. It is not accidental that the dissolution of the Lovesoneites coincides with the moment when our party reaches the highest point in morale and activity in our history, Good Old FDR While bourgeois politicians and publicists assure us that Roosevelt runs a government, of the people, for the people, and by the people, his regime proceeds to act like a government of the plutocracy, for the plutocracy, and by the plutocracy. Like all other capitalist powers, the administration at Washington is in reality a pliant tool in the hands of the big international monopolist corporations.
This stands out clearly in Roosevelt imperialist war policies. But it is no less evident in such incidental events as the deal just consummated between the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation and the Rumanian Government, thanks to the forceſul intervention of State and Treasury Department officials.
Here is the story. When the Nazis began to take over Rumania last October, Rumanian funds amounting to some 40, 000, 000 were frozen in this country by Presidential decree. The owns the Rumanian Telephons System, part of which has already been seized by Russia, Hungary, and Bulgaria and the rest by the Rumanian Government, presumably as trustee for German capital None of the United States corporations in Nazicontrolled countries have been able to obtain payment in American money for their properties since the war started. That one of the underlying motives behind Wall Street support of Washington military program.
But why. reasoned Wall Street, should all our monopolies have to wait until Hitler is crushed for the return of our invested capital? So, as the Times phrases it, with the cooperation and active help of the State Department and the United States Treasury the Rumanian government was induced to pay immediately 13, 800, 000 of its blocked funds to the for its properties. The corporation, reports the Times, was satisfied completely with the deal and had received an absolutely fair price for its property. Indeed they might be, for, according to the company officials, the payment covered all investment in capital stock (amounting to 7, 667, 686. advances on current account, and equity in undistributed carnings. That is, the corporation las redeemed its entire investment plus ten years profits plus hidden gravy, we may be sure. And it was also compensated for that portion of its properties taken by Russia, Ilungary, and Bulgaria. This incident, remarks the Times correspondent, showed the value of the freezing policy as a measure of protecting United States interests in countries which have fallen or are likely to fall under outside influences. If there had been no frozen Rumanian funds in the United States, it was pointed out, the might have achieved a less satisfactory settlement or at least have had to wait longer for its money.
Such are blessings showered by Roosevelt policies. upon the giant international trusts. You boys are heroes. You re whom Hollywood need has tom. over, because of lack of money.
going over to make the world safe porarily lifted the veil of obscur. Now by mere chance she can go for Democracy. God bless you ity?
to college on that 250 for one boys. And remember, when you One was discovered down and year.
get back, and am voicing the out in a barroom in a Massachu Feodor Sok, the seventh sursentiments of the entire country setts town. The newspapers call. vivor, was finally located in a when say it, nothing will be ed him a bum and would not veteran CCC camp near Buffalo, too good for you.
print his real name to save him This was his last refuge These were the words employed from shame. His shame is to which unemployment and want by the capitalist politicians and that of many workers who have had driven him.
big shots back in 1917 and 1918 been so beaten down by the mis. In Hamden, Conn. was Bernard to speed the doughboys off to the cries and hardships of life in the Darly, waiting on table in a bar.
European battlefronts. Among Democracy they fought to save Michael Saccini was found in New the millions of soldiers who listen that they have given up all hope. York, working as a barber shop ed to these words were Sergeant Another. George Wills, was porter.
York boys.
found living near a city dump in Only the tenth of these greatest Sergeant York and his detail ro Philadelphia, trying to keep body heroes of the war was found to turned from the war to be acclaim and soul together by keeping be living somewhat free of inse ed the outstanding heroes of all few goats and picking tin foil, curity. That was Perey Beards the troops who had gone overseas. brass and paper off the dump. He loy, a bachelor living with his Marching down Broadway in a said he huge parade on their return, show was able to earn as much father on a well kept farmin Con dollars a week and bowed nectetit.
ered with cheers, applause and down to no man. Nothing will be too good for confetti, Sergeant York boys third, Thomas Johnson, was you when you return, the ruling were accorded a special position located living alone in a one room class told the workers during the of honor.
shack in Denison, Texas. He con last war. They ll be saying it Almost 22 years have passed cealed himself behind a hanging again soon.
since that glorious day. Sergeant blanket and signed the film com When they do, remember Ser York boys scattered over the pany release and received his geant York boys.
country, disappeared into anony. 250 without even permitting the film company representative to see Now a new batch of boys are his face.
NOTICE TO BRANCHES being prepared to go to wa Mario Musst, another survivor, Sunday, January 26, ha make the world safe for Democ was found working as a night been set by the National As.
racy again. flood of propa, watchman in a New York paper sociation for the Advancement gand is being prepared and un mill. He was just managing to of Colored People as Nationloosed on them. Included in this cke out an existence. He was al Defense Day. The Associapropaganda is a film shortly to overwhelmed by the 250 wind tion has called for mass meetbe released from Hollywood about all and said that this was the ings and rallies throughout the exploits of Sergeant York and first time in life he had rell the country to protest dishis boys during the last war ceived something for nothing Another, Joe Konotski, is the the armed forces and in the crimination and segregation in Before the film could be given to the public the film company father of six children whom he is rapidly expanding war indushad to secure permission from trying to support hard toil in tries.
the surviving members of Ser, a mill in Holyoke, Mass.
Branches of the Party are seant York heroic detail, whose notified that the next issue of names were used in the film.
THE FORTUNATE ONE Otis Merrithew is working the SOCIALIST APPEAL will carry a special message on WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM as a truck driver. By comparison Ten men were located. The rest with the other heroes he seemed these questions which should be of great help in pushing were either dead or had disap to be making out pretty well. He peared beyond finding.
has a wife and three daughters, sales of the paper at meetings called in their cities.
What has happened to these one of whom wanted to go college.
greatest heroes of the war from She had given up this hope how.
mity.
In every class society, be it based on slavery, serf.
dom, or as at present on wage slavery, the oppressor class is armed. It is sufficient to mention the use of troops (including the militia) against strikers, a phenomenon common to all capitalist countries with out exception. The arming of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat is one of the greatest, most cardinal, most significant facts of present day capitalist society. LENIN Pacifist Changeling If you want to understand the process by which professional pacifists turn into professional war mongers, you should read Norman Thomas Socialist Call and watch it happening.
Norman Thomas young followers are still fighting in court against military training but that pacifist activity, far from being in direct contradiction to war mongering, provides a bridge to it.