TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1939 SOCIALIS1 APPEAL By Dwight Macdonald Focus of War Situation Shifts SPARKS IN THE NEWS From Far East to Danzig Arena Upon Whom Shall We Rely to Fight Coughlin?
Information, please For some time now we have been told by the press of the Socialist Workers Party that the fate of the workers of the world turns to a large extent on how the crucial situation in France develops. agree entirely. But have been to put it mildly. disappointed with the way the press has covered the French front. The recent developments in the and the relation of the the London Bureau and the Fourth International, to them. this most central of all themes has been touched on only in the most gingerly way. The cut and dried account of the congress which was printed in the Appeal of June 23 the entire story being told, in the most unenlightening and perfunctory way, in about 500 words this is a recent case in point. don see why the Appeal can find a Paris correspondent who will send in regular articles interpreting such things as the Stalinists attitude toward the Daladier regime, the latest tendencies in the the rumored right wing split in the French and so on. realize that the French situation, from the standpoint of the Fourth International, is at present both delicate and complex. But that seems to me all the more reason why it should be fully discussed in the Appeal. Ostriches, not revolutionists, hide their heads in the sand.
Add: Kremlin Kultur There have been objections to my inclusion of Eisenstein, Shostakovitch and Meyerhold in last week agony column on the grounds that, since the date of the news stories quoted. all three of these artists have been taken back into official favor. As for the first two, the price they have paid for reinstatement in the Kremlin good graces is the abandonmert of their experimental techniques in order to turn out the most banal and conserva tive work (Eisenstein Alexander Nevsky: Shostakovitch latest symphony. utterly lacking in the qualities that made them worldfamous. As for Meyerhold. quote from today N. Times: MOSCOW. June 23. Vsevolod Meyerhold. was taken from his Moscow home by secret police night before last aad locked in a cell at Lubyanka prison. His arrest surprised Soviet stage and lit erary circles because recently he seemed to be coming back gradually into favor. Egyptian Socialism In the May issue of Jewish Frontier there is an extremely interesting article by Salomon Schwartz on Social Legislation in the Soviet Union. Schwartz begins with a point which fits neatly into the thesis of Trotsky recent article in the New International: namely, that the Soviet bureaucracy which used to mas querade as part of the working class, in the last year has openly asserted its differentiation from the workers. They don t, of course, call themselves bureaucrats. No, the term the press now uses for these gentlemen is the intelligentsia. Under the banner of the inteitigentsia. writes Schwartz, there is beWOODRUM BILL DOOMS JOBLESS TO STARVATION MEN AND WOMEN OF LABOR (Continued from Page 1) sides but the main stall has ſense of what they deem their ing consummated a process which has prac backside in the Orient. been on Russia part.
vital interests Danzig Coup Awaited The present blind alley of Pledges Worthless tically nothing to do with that name. That Meanwhile all the now fam the negotiations is exactly To be sure, pledges don process is the social self assertion of the upper Har stages of a Nazi offensive where Stalin has wanted to mean anything to the bloody Continued from Page 1)
and its liberation from the intimate ties of of Danzig. An effort is appar. Hitler that he remains ready to don and Paris. They re worth the proletarian ideology.
Can the Trade Unions Alone Stop Fascism?
ently being made to put on a come to an understanding ev ing scores of letters from Stakhonovites, Udar Free city, whch voted the usit. Hitler free to the users or em But this time if the French and headed by John Lewis and William Green, stand helpEarly last December the press began print cold coup in the so called en a tacit one that will leave new deal election pledges.
The trade unions, bogged down with the bureaucracies niks. straw bosses, and, of course, intelli gentsia. exposing lax discipline and low pro ciections. The city is being broilment with Russia.
they ll have to throw in their duction in the factories and demanding strict filled with storm troopers and less before the terrible problems now facing the working No doubt the British and own. The bloc of alliances haslaws be passed to remedy this. In the Ural the Poles are being worn down French would like to sic Gertily fashioned in the last few class, the half ruined farmers, the small business men, and machine plant, for instance, where this spon by a slow process of cutting many onto Russia and keep the months will fall to pieces the destitute unemployed taneous movement of protest began, Pravda away their authority, plece by strategic sideline berth for Bloodlessly victorious once The trade unions as fighting organizations of the workindignantly reported that in the eleven months piece.
themselves. The Russians more in Europe. Hitler and his up to last December, there had been no less The idea is that one fine day would like to do just the oppo bus boy Mussolini will turn ing class won huge successes in the past, conquering many than 978 cases of unexcused absences from soon Danzig will proclaim it site. This is all perfectly natu with a will to the French and of the rights of labor and defending them during the upwork. Schwartz points out, however, that ac self part of the Reich. Poland ral. That how things go in British empires overseas. Brittually this represents only an average absence will hesitate just a little too gang warfare and the Russians ain will be less able than ever swing of capitalism. Today under the domination of Lewis and Green the trade if alone and without help per worker of one half day a year.
long and its fine friends in Lon are forced in this situation to to cope with the Japanese in These letters got action at once. The pen don and Paris will ditch it just play according to the rules of China and will render still face disaster.
is mightier than the sword. Without consult as they did Czechoslovakia. such warfare.
niore difficult Roosevelt job Father Coughlin understands the limitless strength of ing the much publicized Soviet parliament, a That appears to be the general Life and Death for Poland in swindling the American peo America laboring people far better than do Lewis and flat violation of the much publicized Soviet trend of the calculations in BerIt is this situation, almost ple into a new war.
constitution, the Kremlin in quick succession lin.
Green with their corner grocery outlook.
more than anything else, that These are the headaches put through a series of labor regulations of unGrist to Nazi MIII is encouraging Hitler to make these days in London while ac That is why he attempts to turn the unemployed, tooth precedented severity. On December 20 it de Fine grist, of course, to the a stab for Danzig and the Pol tually Britain and all the other creed the introduction of the work passport. Nazi mill is the bog down of the ish Corridor in the hope that the governments concerned and nail, upon those organized in trade unions.
that ultimate in control of the working class. negotiations are in Moscow for British and French, seeing no proceeding to call up reserves That is why he denounces the and the of first introduced by Napoleon III in 1854 as the Russia entry into what the help from Russia, will back and distribute their armies. livret ouvrier. and the very same sort of New York Times likes to call down again.
over his radio network. That is why he calls strikers navies and air forces, and giv fink book as the New Deal Maritime Com the peace front. e. the idlers, and speaks of the jobs they have left.
Whether they will be able to ing every indication that they mission, backed up by the Kremlin American Anglo French side of this mon back down however, is precise expect the final payoff soon.
That is why he calls every militant trade unionist a agents, is now trying to impose on American ster gang war. If there was any ly the question. Danzig may be seamen. Hitler re introduced it into Germany doubt about the bogdown and just a minor note in the terrible SLUM DWELLERS communist, a socialist, a Jew.
in 1935. During the whole campaign of letters the wishful character of the op disharmony That is why he exerts every ounce of his voice and his to the editor, by the way, no one dared suggest tomistic predictions of a week around the heads of Chamber this work book idea, and it was only after the ago in London and Paris, it lain and Daladier. But to PolPROTEST BOSTON pen to build up a terrible hate for the words: communist, socialist, Jew.
Kremlin had issued its decree that its in. was dispelled on Thursday by a Pnd it is a matter of life and CLEARANCE PLAN numerable spokesmen began to vie with each blistering editorial in Pravda. death.
The trade unions alone, especially as they have been other in glorifying the new regulation. Joe Stalin own organ. Special to the Socialist Appeal)
caught in the death grip which democratic capitalism has The British and French have More edicts were issued on December 28 The editorial was signed by given explicit and solemn and BOSTON, Mass. The inadeclamped upon Lewis and Green, cannot meet the situation.
last, again without consulting any one parlia Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin latest off repeated pledges of imme quacy of present slum clear new force is needed and needed badly.
ment, trade unions, even the Party outside copy boy, who said it expressed diate assistance to Poland ance plans was dramatically the top ranks of the Kremlin bureaucracy. his own opinion but we all should the Poles fight in de demonstrated in the CharlesA new weapon of the working class must be forged.
These greatly extended the time a worker know what happens to Pravda town area of this city a week An Independent Labor Party, a fighting militant politmust be employed in a plant before he be writers whose opinions do not ego Friday. More than 400 ancomes eligible for sick benefits, cut down the happen to agree with Stalin ical party of the working class charged with vision, with gry residents of the area se daring, with invincible boldness must be organized as the period expectant mothers were given time of The Pravda editorial, of course, with pay from eight weeks before and eight represents the official view of lected for a low cost housing battering ram that will smash this entire trashy structure weeks after the birth to five weeks before and the Stalin government.
proval of the project at the first of New Deal politics and the poisonous fascist growths four weeks after, required workers to give one he parleys, said Zhdanov, month (instead of one day s) notice before have entered a blind alley by the city council and threat Fascism in America Must Be Stopped!
that swell upward from its rotting foundation.
quitting a job, and ordered heads of factories, because the British and French ened to barricade their homes on pain of severe punishment, to discharge at still want an agreement under against eviction unless they once any worker who, without valid excuse, is which the would play We must not repeat the mistakes of the labor movement either absent from work or over twenty min the role of a hired man, carrywere offered dwellings at equal in Italy and in Germany which permitted forgers, sideutes late at any time. Finally, all workers who ing on its shoulders the entire rent levels.
give up their jobs, whether they are fired or load of the engagement. No Mrs. Lillian Lyman, mother walk spielers, and sideshow adventurers like Mussolini and (Continued from Page 1)
Hitler to take over power.
whether they leave of their own free will, are to be automatically dispossessed from their accepes pecting country would swer to the youth is to fling it the case of the tenants, told the The first lesson to learn is not difficult. LABOR MUST accept such an agreement if it the miserable appropriation of eight councilmen that she homes within ten days, regardless of whether does not want to be a plaything 123, 000, 000 the Housing Bureau has provided another in the hands of people who want DEPEND ON ITS OWN STRENGTH.
would refuse to move unless a dwelling for them. Thus the Soviet worker is someone to pull a hot coal out The terrible situation among dwelling similar to her present Labor must have its own independent political party, Labor must have its own defense guards.
shackled hand and foot to his job, a cog in the of the tire for them. Zhdanov the unemployed in the United come and at the same rent was apparatus of Soviet production. The social charged that the French and Gallup Poll. For many mil of the audience came shouts of The greatest danger of all is to depend on the Rooseism Stalin is building in one country is com. British are deliberately sabo lions the steel doors of private accord: Same here. Where velts, the La Guardias, the police, and the boot lickers of ing to have an increasingly Egyptian flavor ging the negotiations in order industry have closed forever. do you expect us to move to?
to it.
these former bosom friends of Coughlin and his ilk, to exploit the imaginary stub. The unemployed know this. We can afford to move any borness of the before But to act, they must know place else.
The first task that labor must perform in stopping the the eyes of public opinion in this too: Their condition is due Mrs. Lyman told the comfascist movement in America is the organization of a their own countries in order to the decaying system of cap mitteemen that she now has workers defense guard.
to help them to strike a bar italism. They must realize that five room house for which she Every union local should begin the immediate organizagain with the aggressors.
the so called leaders, the Lew pays 17. The best can get is Both Sides Stall ises, Greens and Browders, a four room back alley place tion of a guard to protect itself from the certain onslaught What Zhdanov says about the have deliberately avoided the and then they ask me to pay of the fascists in the near future.
British and French may be onswer. For the only answer is rent. Again there were The sooner these guards are organized the more efficient quite true. what he does not is to fight the real enemy, the shouts from the audience: say is that it can be said with Roosevelt War Deal and the They won let us rent places they will become in protecting the labor movement.
By EMANUEL GARRETT equal truth about the Soviet administration by mil. if we ve got too many chil.
Trained, disciplined, and bold workers defense guards government itself. There has itant mass action from coast dren, They want us to put up are the ONLY FORCE that can physically stop the fasbeen plenty of stalling on both to coast.
deposits for practice. My curse be on the Constitution of rent, and we the United States. which defends slavery.
haven got any money, cists from overpowering the labor movement in America.
He was as caustic with the scriptures which The people of this and other (Concluded in next issue)
sanctified slavery.
areas in Boston are badly in need of dwellings better than His enemies called him nigger friend.
the ones in which they are at Second Edition Going to Press!
And a friend of the Negro he was looking beyond formal emancipation to real equality present living. But here, as has been proved in other cities, the When, the Civil War over, Garrison and other abolitionists were content to give up the fight.
slum clearance project works he insisted upon the continued existence of the (Special to the Boclalist Appeal) answers which alone could ral only as a hardship on those Anti Slavery Society until full suffrage rights Fascist Demagogue LIS. on Satur ly the newly stirring political wh are compelled to move. It were granted day, June 17, the Minnesota forces of labor. True enough, is up to the city administration With the Labor Movement Farmer Labor Association held they talked about these things, to provide these people with By JOSEPH HANSEN its first state wide conference but whenever the question cen suitable dwellings at low rent His great distinction, however, was that un since the catastrophic defeat of tered critically on basic prob while the houses are being new pamphlet exposing the Radio Priests real like most of the abolitionist leaders he was an November. This conference was lems, they were steered away, built. and then to scale the program.
active supporter of the labor movement. called to discuss the important Thomas Amlie, former Wiscon: rents in the newly built houses Read it. Get your shopmates to read it. Send it to your Standing for the abolition of chattel slavery problems which confront the sin liberal and new job holder at levels within the means of friends.
and wage slavery. Phillips attacked the prof workers and farmers of Minne in the Department of Justice, the slum dwellers. But the city Give us names and addresses, accompanied by cash and it system and all forms of social oppression. sota and the played his role in discouraging administration is not likely to we will mall direct.
He supported women suffrage when that was it met at a time when the an independent program and do either of these things unless the residents compel the poll Single copies, 5c; in bundles of or more, 3c; in bundles far from being a popular cause. He defended world is on the brink of an trying to sell the New Deal.
Behind Roosevelt ticians to heed their needs and the Russian Nihilists, attacked the suppres. other world war, when fascism of 100 or more, 24c.
sion of the Irish people by the British tyrants, is raising its head in every cor In reply to a proposal to open wants by forceful action PIONEER PUBLISHERS and honored John Brown for his courageous ner, when the unemployment the idle factories under workstroke against slavery. And in the fight for roblem is becoming more and ers control, Amlie the New DEFINITION liberty and against tyranny, he sought to rouse unore acute in every section of Dealer, declared that this was brave who has buried the ham An Indian Stalinist is a 116 University Place, New York City the working class to action.
As a candidate of the Labor Party, he ran days of a most significant elec. would provoke employers to remer and sickle. From the in 1870 for the Massachusetts governorship. tion in the city of Minneapolis sort to fascism. Fascism, said Congress Socialist of India.
His platform said that Labor is entitled to all when the forces of labor rally. Anlie, is only a bastard soit creates. Attacking corruption and the profing from the November Farm cialism. However, he did not Join the Socialist it system he stumped the state. In the election er Labor defeats united under overly oppose it, as he pointed Workers Party he polled 20. 000 votes.
a trade union committee to out that it has put men to work Phillips kept on the go. Speaking, writing, make a surprisingly strong bid in Germany. In fact, we 35c Three for 00 agitating. When he was 70, the Phi Beta Kappa for power.
should take leaves out of the Association graced him with an invitation to totalitarian notebooks. AnWanted!
The Basis of Modern Science. by Sullivan speak. Phillips who had been Phi Beta Kappa No Progressive Program cther progressive arose to History of the English People (4 vols. by Elie Halevy Anti Fascist Salesmen in school had never before in all the years of One might reasonably as Frotest that no real Farmerto sell in Mutual Aid. by Kropotkin his activity been invited to address the well sume that a Farmer Labor Par Labor Party could align itself Was Hitler Prisoner. by Stefan Lorant fed sons of Harvard or the smug conservatives ty which has held power would with the War Deal of Roosevelt.
ROCHESTER, Lord Shaftesbury. by and Barbara Hammond of Phi Beta Kappa. Now an old man (they be realistic enough to give to this embarrassing point Amthought. and the issue for which he had prin. these problems serious consid lie replied that he was 100 per FATHER COUGHLINThe Jewish Problem by Louis Golding cipally fought largely settled, they considered eration and to draw the neces. cent behind Roosevelt inter Fascist Demagogue Germany Puts the clock Back. by Edgar Mowrer It safe to hear him. Phillips saw the humor of sary conclusions of the need for national policy.
pamphlet Practical Economics by G, D, Cole the situation, but he spoke. He spoke to them independent political activity Many good people from the Liberal Commission Socialism in Evolution, by Cole about the duties of a Scholar in a Republic under trade union leadership, tural sections of the state had Call Genesee 1479 Social Life in the Insect World. by Fabre. to probe, to criticize, to fight exploitation free from entanglements with come a long way to this conof man by man, to stand on the side of social the war mongering New Deal, ference on the basic problems Limitations of Science. by Sullivan justice.
There should have been suffi. of the workers and farmers onThe Century Poetry (2 vols. Edited by Roberts cient time in the ten hour meet ly to become disgusted and WANTED Short History of the World. by Wells ing to lay out a bold program leave early. It must be conAnti Fascist Salosen Science and the Modern World by Whitehead Says the Chicago labor paper, the of progressive action. cluded that, to date, the Farm to sell Wrecker, allas the Midwest Daily Record: It This the Farmer Labor Asso cr Labor Association has not Art in England.
by Lambert is not too late to drum the fascist General ciation failed to do.
faced the present sharp prob. FATHER COUGHLIN The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud Mosely out of the army he has discredited Handicapped by the reaction lems and recognized the need Fasolst Demagogue The Economics of Inheritance. by Josiah Wedgwood (for his vicious blasts against workers and ory Stalinist forces and the for throwing off the hampering Big Sales his general all around ratishness. Once upon New Deal politicians, both in ties of the New Deal and the LABOR BOOKSHOP a time the Communist Party. whose paper tent on hamstringing any pro pro war Stalinists, and forging Liberal Commission this is would have told us that the general gressive program of indepen a 116 UNIVERSITY PLACE (2nd Floor) NEW YORK CITY See Miller, Labor Bookshop, program of independent is but the rotten ripe fruit of militarism, the dent political action, the meet working class action which 116 University Place Add 2c per book for postage watch dog of capitalism.
ing failed to give the positive alone can solve these problems.
OUT OF THE PAST Minn. Farmer Labor Confab Skirts Basic Problems FATHER COUGHLIN MINNE WENDELL PHILLIPS (Nov. 29. 1811 Feb. 1884)
In a small mad western town a mob of respectable people invaded the printshop of Elijah Lovejoy. They dragged him out, did these good northerners, and lynched him. Lovejoy had infuriated them with abolitionist agitation. The year was 1837 the Civil War was some twenty odd years off.
Wendell Phillips, well to do Harvard man, went to a meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, called to discuss the murder of Lovejoy. Social problems hadn agitated him much before. True, he had attended one or two abo!:tionist meetings, but that was the extent of his social protest. In fact, he went that evening to Faneuil Hall not so much out of aroused in dignation as out of liberal interest. But Wendell Phillips that night changed the course of his life. Champion of Truth The Assistant Attorney General of Massachusetts took the the platform to speak his approval of the lynching. Hardly had the Attorney General sat down when, burning with fury, Phillips jumped on the platform and delivered an impassioned denunciation of the slave system, the murder and those who would condone both, Several unsuccessful attempts were made to stop him. When he finished, the placid Bostonians cheered themselves hoarse. Of a sudden, Phillips had become a leading spokes.
man of the cause against slavery along with Lloyd Garrison.
His friends thought him insane. It was alright to show some sympathy for the slaves, to contribute money to the abolitionist movement, even to attend a meeting. But to plunge wholeheartedly into freedom cause, to sub merge oneself in the fight against chattel slavery, to devote one life to an ideal that was something altogether different Phillips. however, did precisely that. Knight Errant of Unfriended Truth he spent one night in a valley speaking to a few people, the next in a larg city addressing a huge crowd. Often he had to leave the meeting hall under protection. For the respectable people who had lynched Lovejoy and beaten Garrison, would have been glad to do as much to him.
At one meeting the town respectables roared so loud Phillips could not be heard: he nevertheless continued speaking, addressing himself to the newspapermen: While speak to these pencils speak to a million men. We have got the press of the country in our hands; whether they like it or not, they know that our speeches sell their papers.
Because a lawyer had to swear fidelity to the Constitution, Phillips in 1842 gave up his Pocket Book Edition Sale Pamphlet