CapitalismCommunismCommunist PartyDemocracyGerman RevolutionLeninOpportunismSocial DemocracySocialismSovietWorkers MovementWorking ClassZinoviev

MAY 15, 1921 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 54 55 THE WORKERS COUNCIL May 15, 1921 Communist Difficulties in Germany and Italy By LUDWIG LORE a over by business corporations, and in either case it human energy in unco ordinated and incalculable ranwill be necessary for the community to intervene in dom farming operations, as characterizes the present its own behalf. Under capitalism, the special monopoly system. It is impossible to make agriculture capable advantage attaching to land ownership does not more of feeding the modern world so long as it is organized than make up to the farmer for the extent to which in antiquatedly microscopic units. The break up of he is exploited by the manufacturers of machinery the bonanza farms of the past generation was not and supplies and by the exactions of the commission due to inherent unfitness, but to prematurity. We men and the bankers; but if capitalism were wiped now have the large machinery and the systems of out at these points, a great special privilege would business organization, and all the other devices for accrue to those owning and operating agriculture and scientific organization and operation.
the other extractive industries; so that it would be Much of the agricultural area of the United States necessary for the commonwealth to take over these needs to be put to crops that will not yield within industries also.
period to interest the individual farmer. large The circumstances of modern agricultural produc proportion of the eastern hill country ought to be set tion reinforce the argument for communization. In out with nut bearing trees capable of yielding trethe first place, agriculture is more than ever a spec mendous crops of food for beast or man. Other areas ulative enterprise, which can not be a general sucought to be planted with timber trees. systematic cess except as the risk is borne over large areas. This forest policy can be managed only under communal is especially true in such regions, as the drought areas proprietorship.
of the Dakotas, Oklahoma, Montana, and similar The fact is that scientific agriculture approximates states, where there can be no certainty of adequate more and more to a manufacturing process. The rainfall; in the hail regions of the wheat belt; in the pest areas, such as the cotton section liable to the raygraduated supply of water by means of irrigation; ages of the boll weevil; in the fruit industry, crippled the balanced apportionment of plant nutriment by over a large part of the country by the menace of means of chemically ascertained requirements; the untimely frosts. These hazards have been provided operation of gigantic drainage works requiring unitary control over colossal areas; the raising of crops under for in small part by insurance, but on the whole they can never be satisfactorily handled except by nationsquare miles of glass or canvas; the correlation of alization of agriculture.
agriculture with central processing plants and storage, Moreover agriculture is an extremely technical in all of these steps help to break down the distinction between farming and industry and to subject dustry requiring a high degree of specialized skill the whole productive process to a common requirecovering an enormous range of subjects, a range inment.
capable for mastery by any individual farmer in the general farming regions, and a specialization that When it comes to the inauguration of a communist makes it absurd for the man that has mastered one policy the whole country will have to be surveyed branch to waste his time presiding over the diversified and tabulated, and the various agricultural areas and units will have to be classified. Then the commonprocesses of a trifling patch of ground. The man that really takes the pains to become an expert in one wealth can proceed to take them over the order branch of agriculture ought to direct its operations of urgency and expediency, discriminating along some over great areas. Something has been accomplished by tenants before land farined by proprietors; Take such lines as the following: Take over land farmed already by the colleges of agriculture, with their experiment farms and their facilities for expert advice, over land operated by inefficient fariners before that as well as by the system of county agents; but the farmed effectively; Take over areas dependent on maximum of systematic efficiency can not be reached artificial irrigation, or on crop insurance before retill whole counties, possible in some cases whole states, gions with sufficient natural advantages in these reare farmed as a unit.
spects; Take over land fit only for forestation beBesides, agriculture can not be a success under fore land suited to fancy agriculture.
modern conditions without great investment. more The Communists of Russia and Germany do not than any ordinary farmer is ever able to procure. think it necessary to expropriate the farmer off hand Nearly all the farms in the United States lack suf and wholesale. Hope is placed in the superior atficient funds for cattle, for machinery, for fencing, tractiveness of communal farming with high productfor power, or for whatever equipment is necessary ivity to undermine the prejudice in favor of individual for greatest productivity. Some of these needs could proprietorship. In the United States, in view of the be modified or even reduced under systematic organ rapid increase of farm tenantry and the general unization by farmers co operatives or by corporation profitableness of farming, it ought not to be impossible agriculture, but individual enterprise is incapable of to develop a policy for communization that would inecting them or surmounting them consistent with the solve the problem of production, make possible interests of the general public.
guaranteed occupancy of modern homes by rural famFurthermore, agriculture requires, for the sake of ilies, and wipe out the enormities of exploitation as economical industrial operation, to be conducted on at present practiced upon the rural population by the an enormous scale. We can no longer afford to waste money lender and the middle man. If a tax equal to so much space in fences, so much capital in partly the economic rent of the land (i. e. the amount adused machinery (which could be employed far more ded to the earning power of the labor by the differentdays in the year if attached to a large enough unit ial productivity of superior soils) were put on all area. so much power in machines too small to be lands remaining in the hands of private farmers, it economical, so much capital in hosts of petty and ought not to take long to convince everyone of the makeshift barns and cribs on myriad farms, so much desirability of universal communization of agriculture.
The recent history of the Communist move rupted educational revolutionary propaganda would ments in Germany and Italy is so interwoven and have brought the masses who once stood in a solid so closely related to one another, that it is practi phalanx behind the German Social Democracy, into cally impossible to deal with one without entering the Communist movement.
largely upon the other. They are confronted with In the meantime, however, dark storm clouds the same problems. Both have gotten to that stage were gathering in Italy, rending asunder the only of the revolutionary class struggle where the con party in Europe that had weathered the gales that flict between the capitalist class and its exploited disrupted the socialist organizations in every other proletariat has reached the stage of active and ag nation. The international significance of the Italgressive struggle. There the text book of proletar ian crisis had its effect upon the German revoluian revolution is being written, so that the com tionary movement as well. It led to the resignation rades in other countries may see and profit by their of Klara Zetkin, Adolf Hoffman, Paul Levi, Daeumistakes.
mig and Brass from the Executive Committee, and Following the second Congress of the Third brought these comrades into direct conflict with the International, bringing in its wake the split in the Executive Committee of the Third International, Independent Social Democracy, came the unification whose position the United Communist Party in of the Left Wing of the Independents with the Germany had adopted.
Communist Party, under the name of United Com In the next issue of The Workers Council munist Party of Germany. Germany now had a the reader will find a portion of the report preCommunist Party that could lay claim to political sented by Comrade Zinoviev to the 10th Congress consideration, a party of more than 500, 000 mem of the Russian Communist Party on the internabers, with numerous daily and weekly newspapers, tional situation which deals with the Italian situawith representatives in the Reichstag and in almost tion. He presents the matter very simply, stating every Landtag, with majorities and strong minori that the entire situation was precipitated by the reties in countless cities and smaller communities. fusal of Serrati to separate from the 11, 000 opporWith one stroke the Communist movement in Ger tunists, the supporters of Turati. As a matter of many had become a factor to be reckoned with, it fact, the whole incident is not quite so obvious.
had become a political power within the nation. Those who have followed the recent history of the Nothing could have been more disquieting to Italian movement know that it was due chiefly to the reactionaries on the one hand and to the Noskes the influence of Serrati that the Italian party was and the Scheidemanns on the other. The masses the first large party to declare its allegiance to the had ceased to associate the name Communism with Third International, that Serrati has always been bloody revolts and violent uprisings. They began the leader in the fight against Italian opportunism to realize that here had come a healthy movement as represented by Turati and his followers. Clearly, that was going toward its final goal, determined not there are other reasons than those which Zinoview to be provoked into actions that would hinder chooses to put into the foreground.
rather than help it in the fulfillment of its purpose. In short, the rock that wrecked the unity of the An Open Letter, in which the United Commun Italian movement, and which threatens the unity of ist Party called upon the German proletariat to the Communist movenient all over the world is the unite upon a program of fundamentals in order to difference of opinion that has arisen between the create a solid proletarian front, found astonishing representatives of the Third International on the and enthusiastic response. The purpose of this let one side and Serrati and a strong contingent in the ter, that is, the unification of the German prole Italian party on the other concerning the possibility tariat by separating it from its reactionary and its of a social revolution in Italy at the present time.
reformistic leaders, was accomplished with aston Lenin, Zinoviev, and the representative of the ishing ease and thoroughness. Large unions, entire Third International at the Italian Congress, the districts, responded to their call. Unions that had Bulgarian comrade, Kabaktschieff, are of the opinformerly regarded every Communist with grave ion that in Italy the revolution is knocking at the suspicion, now joined whole heartedly with the door. Serrati, and with him a great majority of the Communist movement. Public opinion in favor of Italian comrades, are of the opposite opinion. This union with Soviet Russia grew with leaps and difference in the conception of the political ripeness bounds, and revolutionary understanding seemed of the Italian labor movement reflects itself in the in a fair way to be penetrating into the very heart tacticts that must be adopted. If it is a fact that of the German labor movement. As the movement the Italian working class will, in the near future, toward the Left grew apace, the alarm of the reac be prepared to take over the political power and tionary socialist labor union leaders became pain the industries of the country into their own hands, fully evident. Communist trade unionists were then the Italian working class must embark upon summarily thrown out of their organizations, and an era of aggressive struggle against the capitalist discussions on Communism versus Socialism were class in order to weaken its power of resistance and the order of the day. Another year of uninter its grip upon the industrial life of the nation. If