FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL FIGHT FOR WORKERS LIBERATION, NOT FOR BOSS PROFITS We Summon American Youth to Struggle for a New Life, Not to Find Foul Death in Fighting the Bosses Battles the The Path of Roosevelt ol Is the Path Not to Peace and Plenty But There are more than 3, 000. All the recent surveys show at the steadily lowering age pressure from United 000 American boys and girls, some extremely interesting level of what they call the States army generals to millaccording to the most corser and significant facts about the criminal, the boy or girl tarize th: camps is invative uy as con Whom indus condition of American youth who refuses to hang himself creasing steadily. Of course and disorgan today as compared with that or die by starvation because all these agents of the capitalized under capitalism has of a few decades ago.
industry won give him a job ist class are looking forward doomed to permanent unem Jobs ployment in the United States, Almost up until 1929, any perate avenue that looks like derstand perfectly that the.
These 000. 000 youths are one graduating from high way out.
bulk of the soldiers whom they barred from their righiful school or a college, if he were There is no youth who does need to preserve the capitalist place in society. They cannot endowed with just ordinary not feel that just as he is en system and the profits this sysliberate themselves rame Blueko intelligence, and ambi. Litled to his share of air to em turns over to a small useless minority of stockholders pendence upon their fathers find a place in industry. He his share of water to drink be must come from the ranks of and mothers: they cannot could become an engineer, a cause he becomes thirsty, so yout marry doctor, an office worker. ais he entitled to his share of The bayone of the army, a Thousands of them skilled tradesman such as a wood to satisfy his hunger and violent horrible death on a forforced into vagabondage, ex plumber, carpenter. steel by that token a job.
eign battlefield, labor camps.
begging and panhandling. nic, or if these avenues were itive, most backward types of is the future decaying capital Even the lowest, most prim. encircled by barbed wire this shutting back and forth on temporarily blocked he could human society such as that in ism offers youth. And for those a job.
tween the large centers of the nary laborer or a semiskilled tralia live would consider it be capitalism row entering the country. hopeless, miserable. worker If he succeeded in yond question that every one period of its death agony, of starving.
spending enough years in born into the tribe was en Iers only hopelessness, misery Thousands of them turn to a school he could become a tech. titled to his share of the tribal frustration, starvation in the life of crime, feeling that nician, a professor, or a refood and tribal huts in return midst of a country choked with they have been shut out from search worker. If he had a lit. for performing his share of the the good things that could every opportunity, refused evtle capital and in those days tribal work. The only kind of make life pleasant for every ery chance to five like human it was not extremely difficult society which denies this most one.
beings, scored and harried to borrow five hundred or a elemental of human rights de Revolutionists Welcome denied a trade, denied an edu thousand dollars. he could spite the willingness of the in Youth place is among the cation, dented Jobs, then they start up a little store, a ser. dividual to work is capitalist ranks of the revolutionaries will live the only kind of life vice station or garage, at least society.
who are struggling to destroy apparently left open to them a hot dog stand. If he was long Society at Fault the capitalist system and rethe life of crime.
on brass and a glutton for punThe prison population of the Ishment, he could make a suc antagonism on the part That is why there is a deep place it with socialism, among of the ranks of those fighting to United States as a result is a cess as a salesman, youth against capitalism in build a society in which all the population of youth. The age Youth in those days had America. That is why every machines, all the natural reof the average inmate in the great hopes for the future, youth who has not figured out sources, all the means of proaverage American prison is plenty of optimism: there real what is wrong feels gloomy, duction are owned by those under twenty five.
ly seemed no limit to oppor depressed, hopeless and wor: who work and where industry Economic Crimes tunity in America if one genuries about his own normality is run to produce goods for the Even more significant is the inely wanted to work and had That is why every youth who benefit of every single person fact that at least 93 of the enough ambition to set his goal has at last discovered that it who is born. In a system like crimes for which American for something worthwhile.
is society and not he who is at this, youth would have a dom boys and girls have been im Now the entire situation is fault feels the deepest hate tonant place with unlimited op prisoned ara either directly completely changed. All sci ward capitalism and unfailing portunities and a future as economic crimes, according to entific surveys of American ly joins the struggle to smash bright as the present one is crimi youth today agree without ex capitalism and replace it with dark.
nologists. or directly due to ception that (1) industry has a socialist society which will In the ranks of the revolueconomic reasons. And one au nofobs to offer the great masive him the place that is his. tionaries in the Socialist Work Party the Young remaining of crimes could ambitious they are or how loyernment representing the inter youth will find a welcome. All record as convinced that the willing they are to work or how the Roosevelt regime as a gov. Feople Socialist League be ultimately shown to be due al they might be to a prospec ests of the capitalist profiteers the boundless courage, loyalty to economic reasons. In plain tive boss. 2) American boys fears youth, and more and and intelligence, all the selflanguage this means that the and girls are pessimistic about more attempts to throttle and sacrifice of which youth is camajority of inmates of Ameri the future, they feel aimless. stifle American youth. One of pable these are the very qual.
can prisons are inmates be without a basic philosophy. Roosevelt right hand men has ties needed to destroy capital cause they have been denied gloomy, out of place, not want advised very deliberately that ism and usher in socialism. In all hope of obtaining a job.
ed, frustrated.
in the United the Socialist Workers Party Many surveys of youth in Entitled to Food States every you be forced to and the Young People SocialAmerica their beliefs, their Moralists are alarmed at the serve a term either in a labor ist League the vanguard or.
moods, their thoughts of the call sex delinquencies of camp or in the army nesecity United States the young peocapitalism in the United job that would make it possible treat youth under their dicta ple will find the place they are States have been made by steep increase in what they orships.
seeking learned scientists who are ex. to marry Army Pressure perts at gathering statistics. Criminologists are alarmed For the same reason the The long lines of youth seeking admission to the are heading straight for militarization, for the army, REVOLUTOVARY for the filthy battlefields of a new boss war, and for the GREETINGS silent graves that are the only haven that capitalism offers the youth of this generation, as it did for the last to Suffering and Death and Nameless Graves on Distant Nothing is more ghastly than the cold blooded preparations being made throughout the world to plunge millions of people into the horrors of a new international war.
Nothing is more vile than the cynicism with with which the ruling classes are planning the deliberate duping of the cannon fodder by covering up their ignoble and sordid alms with noble and idealistic catchwords.
The masters of every imperialist country count on two things for the effective carrying out of their war plans: First, the forgetfulness of the masses, the hope that they will not recall how they were tricked into the last world slaughter by the slogans of the war to end all wars and the war to make the world safe for democracy.
Second, the huge propaganda machinery which they operate the press, the radio, the movies, the pulpit, the schools and by means of which they din into the ears of the people, day in and day out, the lies calculated to convince the unthinking that they are to be blown to bits in a just cause.
Since the coming war involves no small thing the limbs.
life or liberty of the masses! it would be well for everyone to reflect on the real significance of the war in which he will be called upon to fight and die.
Who Does the Fighting. And the Dying. The question of who does the fighting and the dying can be and in actuality is settled only on a class basts.
Despite the alleged popularity of imperialist war nowadays, both fascist and democratic countries immediately resort to conscription. The fact that they do not rely upon volunteers to make up their fighting forces is itself enough to show how little confidence they have in the attractiveness of thele wars.
Now, according to the conscription laws, everybody of a certain age and fitness is subject to serve in the war rich man as well as poor. But how does it work out in practice?
Except for a comparative few, workers are generally conscripted for active service. The government argues that they can usually be replaced in industry by younger people, by older folk, by women. With the industrial and mas mates of the country, however, the case is dire anchey are indispensable. These parasites cannot be replaced, it is said, in the commanding positions of factories and banks.
If they are put into uniform, they are kept safely at home.
and become dollar a year men.
That is why, in all modern wars, it is the workers and farmers who see active service and are killed off by the millions while, with few unimportant exceptions, the capitalist class emerges from the war not only sound in limb but even sounder in the purse.
The last World War, like the next one, is a bosses war with working class cannon fodder.
What Are You Going to Fight For?
How is it that in spite of all the solemn oaths sworn by the ruling class and its governments, wars nevertheless continue to break out periodically! Pledges, pacts, treaties, promises, Leagues of Nations none of these prevent war from recurring with increasing frequency.
Why? Is it just because the capitalist rulers are evilminded, because they like war for its own sake? No, that is not the basic reason.
The basic reason must be sought in capitalism itself. It BREEDS war as its inevitable and natural product. To live, capitalism must expand. It must find ever new sources of raw materials, markets for its products, fields for financial investment, for if it stands still, it dies.
But the world is, after all, limited in space and population and resources. Moreover, it is already divided up among half a dozen great imperial powers. Each and all of them must expand. There can be no question of one of them voluntarily handing over its colonies, its investment possi.
bilities, its markets to rival power. Quise the contrary.
Each of them seeks must seek to gain control over more than it already has. Otherwise, the sources of its profits would dry up, and without profit capitalism has no meaning.
For certain periods of time this incessant conflict is resolved peacefully, that is, without actual resort to arms.
In these periods, each imperialist power jockeys for a better position. It exercizes diplomatic pressure, trade pressure, financial pressure to better its economic position.
But after a time, all of them run up against a brick wal.
It becomes impossible for any one of them to make another move forward by peaceful means. There is nothing left for them to do but decide by armed struggle who is coing to be master of the world er of its largest portion.
Then war breaks out!
The last World War was fought to decide whether England or Germany would be the principal economic power in the world. Millions died ia order that England, France and the United States should dominate the world among them.
Countries like Germany were reduced to the position of poor relations, second class ci izens in the imperialist family.
The coming World War is to be fought to decide whether Germany (and her all. es) are to get back the loot stolen from her by England and her alles, lc Germany, in turn, like all the imperialist powers, sole from hundreds of milions of colonial and semi colonial sluvez turoughout the world. new genera ion of miljors must therefore die in order to determine which gang of exploiter. German or English, French or Italian, nerican cr Japanese is to gain most from coining profits out oi e Did and sweat of the toilers of the world.
In 1919, after he had dragked the United States into the World War, President Wilson asked, in a St. Louis speech, if there was even a child who did not understand that the war was a commercial war. Twenty years laier, let us hope, there will not be a child, much less an adult, who does not as the war of 1914 10amlag war is to be Casentially the same understand that the Yes, But What About the Danger of Fascism. This will be a sacred war, a just war, a war to defend our hearths, our democracy from the assaults of fascism, which every decent human being detests and should be ready to fight.
Of course, of course! There never was a war for profit that wasn dressed up to look like a war for a lofty ideal Does anyone think that Daladier could get a single French worker to fight in a war whose openly announced object was to keep Czechoslovakia as a vassal of French capital instead of German?
Could Chamberlain get a single British worker to fight in a war whose openly announced object was to protect the profits of English bankers from the envious assaults of Ger.
man bankers?
Could Roosevelt get a single American worker to fight in a war whose openly announced object was to protect the profits of Standard Oil in China from encroachments by Japanese capitalism?
The cnly way to make the war even partly attractive is to deny any base, commercial motives and to insist that Our aims in the war are of the purest: De end the fatherland, protect our womanhood, defend democracy, save civilization, preserve our children, end war. and smash fascism.
But that exactly how the masses were tricked into the last war. Take the German social democrats, who supported the Kaiser in his war against Russia. What were their argumonarchism, for Prussianism? Gererally speaking, no. All they were doing, by their war support, was to defend German civilization, German progress, the German labor movement from the menace of Czarist berbarism!
Here was their argument: Germany is not perfect, by any means. But at least here the labor movement is legal Fields Drenched with the Blood of Our FellowWorkers ALLENTOWN BRANCHI of All 157 ennsylvania Countries.
הונדון Group of Comrades WATEKERS UNION LO AL 453 FTFFHHHHH Anerican Federation Teachers the workers themselves. They have hot and cannot have tion and the liberation of humanity.
imperialistic motives. Their only aim can be their own libera.
Their enemy? HE IS RIGHT HERE! His name is capital.
ism. His forces are the capitalist class and its servants, in office and out. Smash capitalism and you smash fascism, you smash war, you smash exploitation, oppression, misery, injustice!
In that war and it is the only just war let every worker enlist. Let him choose a leadership of his own, one that is trustwerthy, one that is truly devoted to his interests and is ready to fight aggressively and consisently for them.
The class war for freedom against the imperialist war for profit!
Under that sign, the working class can and will triumph and powerful; so is the social democratic party: so are the Ves, etc. In Russia, however, both the unions and the movement are outlawed, and their leaders cruel ly persecuted. imprisoned, murdered. There is no freedom of the press, of assembly, of speech, no right to organize.
In a word no democracy at all! We are, therefore, not only defending German labor, and a good deal of democracy, but by defeating the Czar in battle, we bring freedom to the Russian masses at the end of our bayonets.
The French and English and Austrian and Italian and American social patriots argued, subsiantially, the same way.
What happened in actuality! Two things: First: during the war, even the few democratic rights permitted labor or by the Kaiser were abolished in Germany.
Second: when the Russian masses did overthrow the Czar, the German freedom bringing bayores were the first to be used in an effort to stab the revolution through the heart so that Czarism might be restored.
Similarly now. In the Sacred War against Fascism, labor in the democratic countries will be deprived of the right to strike, of the right to organize. Where its press is allowed to circulate, it will be heavily where its organiza Where its meelings are allowed, its speakers will be tions are unsuppressed, they will be fettered and paralyzed.
As in the United States during the last war, striking workers will be deported from one state to another and put in concentration camps; its leaders will be jailed or lynched; its press prohibited.
Fascism smashes the standard of living of the workers; it compels them to work long, wearying hours at low wages.
But France, which is preparing a democratic war against fascism, has already forced the workers off the 40 hour week, raised it to 45 hours and in war industries and what Isn a war industry? the work week is already 60 hours.
Tomorrow, the sky will be the limit.
Fighting Fascism under capitalist leadership which means merely fighting an imperialist rival is a fraud, behind which stands the living reality of totalitarian dictatorship and serfdom for the workers in the democracies.
Fighting fascism for the independence of small na tions is another fraud, behind which stands the living reality of the small and large nations, Kke India, Ireland, the Phillipines, Syria, Tunis and others, which were long ago de prived of their independence by the democratie imperialists.
Yet There is a Just War to Fight Fascism must nevertheless be fought, together with all forms of exploitation and oppression. And it is the workers who must do the fighting. That is absolutely correct and necessary But such a war cannot be fought under the leadership and control of a class which exploits the noblest sentiments of humankind for the basest imperialist purposes, which uses the slogan of anti fascism merely to protect its self and power. What confidence can an intelligent worker place in the real rulers of the country the Morgans, Rockefellers, Sloans, Fords. Girdlers, Weirs and similars as warriors in the struggle for democracy and the freedom of oppressed peoples. Not an ounce unless he has less sense than the child to whom Woodrow Wilson referred in 1919.
Such a war can be fought only under the leadership of Long Live Workers IndiaFree from British Rule! Group of Indian Workers in America Forward to a Socialist America TEACHERS BRANCH of Local NEW YORK