OCTOBER 15, 1921 THE WORKERS COUNCIL OCTOBER 15, 1921)
117 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 116 The Communist International Exposes the Washington Conference Soviet Russia Celebrates Fourth Anniversary!
Before another issue of the WORKERS COUNCIL appears, labor in all lands will have celebrated the fourth anniversary of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. Its birthday is Monday, November 7, 1921.
The first Workers Republic has survived all attacks directed against it, through four years filled to the brim with agony in every conceivable form.
Labor in all capitalist lands will unite, on this year anniversary with the emancipated toilers of the Soviet Republic in celebrating the great victory that is slowly being won over famine and plague in the Volga River provinces.
This year we may all express the hope, more confident than ever, that the fifth anniversary of the Soviet Republic will find it far advanced in its work of reconstruction, in its efforts to establish a real communist society.
The workers everywhere will profit by the example and by the four years martyrdom of their Russian comrades. The committee divided 12 to The employers In order to deprive the workers of the means of and their professors (the first endow the colleges in expressing themselves thru electoral struggles, first which the latter teach) had agreed that the prevailing the courts send their spokesmen to prison, then behigh (sic) wages obstruct the process of deflation cause they are in prison, deny them the right of which the committee believes must run its course. functioning as the standard bearers of their class.
Deflation of profits was not mentioned, of course, If this can be done in New York City, it can be in connection with either of the nostrums now ad done elsewhere. It is a crude practice that the autovanced to cure the sick industrial system, cracies of Europe always considered too raw to be The professorial members of the committee are successful. European political prisoners are allowed surely familiar with a study published in the last issue to have their names on the ballot. And if they are of their official organ, the American Economic Re elected they are usually freed.
view, which proves with abundance of evidence that This new, criminal attack upon the working class wages have lagged behind increases in the cost of liv of this country by the capitalist dictatorship must be ing, and that notwithstanding the increases in wages fought. The WORKERS COUNCIL, with other granted during the war, the purchasing power of the organizations. has endorsed the ticket and campaign workers earnings was about 20 per cent less in 1918, of the Workers League.
than in 1890.
The candidates for controller and borough presThe federal government, that sponsored the jobless idents are Edward Lindgren, Rose Pastor Stokes, conference, washed its hands of the problem and Charles Brower and Jacob Hartman.
graciously referred it to state and local authorities to deal with as best they can, to solve the problem Every worker in Greater New York should enlist of providing jobs for five millions of industrial out in this campaign, a part of the great struggle for the liberation of his class. Workers over the country can casts.
The British government attempted to perpetrate help by sending their contributions to the Campaign a similar joke upon its workers. Unlike the Fund, Workers League, 250 25th St. New York of leaders, they refused to join a government City.
conference on unemployment. They preferred to hold WE LL NOT FORGET the government and the employers fully responsible for the industrial demoralization and are vociferously Attorney General Dougherty quietly announces that demanding the provision of immediate and effective he has again pigeon holed the Debs case. In the means for alleviating the suffering of the idle workers meantime he hopes the workers will forget. He thinks and their families.
the workers will forget about Debs, Coldwell and The officialdom of American labor is too spineless all the rest, at Atlanta, Leavenworth and elsewhere.
to adopt a similar attitude. How long will American Tom Mooney still sits in his iron cage in Calilabor endure such degradation and betrayal of its in fornia state prison because the working class sleeps.
terests. The time to take account of its affairs is long Billings is with him.
overdue.
Every hour brings Sacco and Vanzetti nearer the NATIONAL ISSUE gallows in Massachusetts.
The first business of the Italian Socialist Party The New York municipal campaign has suddenly congress meeting at Milan was a protest against the assumed a national importance thru the decision of capitalist conspiracy to legally murder our Italian the board of elections to bar from the ballots the comrades.
names of two political prisoners, Benjamin Gitlow Let every waking hour of every worker carry the and Harry Winitzky, Communists, candidates of the thought, We ll not forget. We ll not forget Debs, Workers League for mayor and president of the Coldwell, Mooney, Billings, Sacco, Vanzetti, nor one board of aldermen.
among all the rest who suffer in prison for loyalty to Thus the boasted American democracy again labor cause.
sheds its thin veneer and reveals itself as the sham When labor gets to thinking hard enough on these it really is.
crimes perpetrated against it, then it will begin to act.
Proclamation on the Washington Conference for debtors would be in a position to pay their debts, but the Limitation of Armaments Issued by the also the question of whether the United States would Executive Committee of the Third (Commun be able to maintain its industry, which had deist) International.
veloped tremendously during the war, at the same high level. THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE While in 1919 a part of the American capitalists could still assume that their welfare was entirely inHE conference called by the United States Govdependent of the economic development of Europe, ernment at Washington for the regulation of the terrible crisis of 1920 and 1921 made it apparent, Eastern Asiatic problems and the reduction of even to the American farmers, that America will be armaments is a new attempt on the part of capitalist unable to export her products if the economic life of society to find an escape from the contradictions Europe continues to decline.
created by the imperialistic World War.
The idea of the creation of a Central Europe and And this is the reason why the United States is the League of Nations lias ended in a complete reparations, why it is asserting itself in the Supreme taking a hand in deciding the question of German fiasco.
Council in deciding the question of Upper Silesia, and Three years after the end of the war and two why it has just now taken a particular stand on the years after the conclusion of peace Europe offers the question of the Russian famine.
spectacle of a great cage in which all manner of wild In a word, the United States has returned to the beasts are fighting over a bone thrown to them.
fold of the Supreme Council, which stands as the Victorious capitalism having demonstrated with such eminent success its ability to create peace, now true representative of world capitalism and has made a toy of the League of Nations.
the United States of America, that back in the days of Versailles participated in the attempt to establish the The United States is now endeavoring to gain control of the administration of world politics, and in League of Nations and then refused to become a member of its own creation, has a second time taken its efforts it is taking full advantage of the difficult situation in which its British rival is caught at the the initiative, in order to solve questions in which it is vitally concerned, that is, the questions involving present moment.
Eastern Asia.
III. ENGLAND DILEMMA Besides this, the United States is desirous of solvIn its desire for victory English imperialism ening the question of the reduction of armaments. couraged the colonies, that had gained considerable All this is to be accomplished by the Washington economic strength in the course of the war, to have Conference. But this attempt, like the previous ones, a share in the administration of the war.
will lead to no result.
In 1917 the colonies were granted the right to help At best it will lead to a new grouping of powers decide questions concerning the foreign policy of and to an intensification of the already existing basis Great Britain.
of conflicting interests.
Today this same imperialism is forced to recognize That such a development will take place is evident from a consideration of the motives impelling the as rights these privileges granted to the colonies in the past, because it cannot bear alone the expense of United States, England, and Japan and from an the naval armaments it considers indispensable to reanalysis of the conflict of interests existing between sist the imperialistic competition of the United States them.
and of her own allies, Japan and France, and for the II. NEW PARTICIPATION OF THE UNITED further reason that it is compelled to regard the coloSTATES IN EUROPEAN POLITICS nies as powers to be reckoned with.
The United States withdrew from the League of In place of the British empire there stands now a Nations. 1) Because England, holding six votes in federation of Great Britain and the autonomous capithe League of Nations, impressed her individuality talistic English colonies, whose external interests do upon the entire League. 2) Because the American not coincide with the interests of the mother country.
capitalists would not guarantee the boundaries decided While English imperialism is desirous of continuing on by the Versailles. Treaty; and (3) because the the union with Japan, so that in the event of a conRepublican capitalist clique desired to take advantage flict with the United States it may have an ally, and of the weakened interest of the American petite so that it may, by constantly encouraging the clash bourgeois masses in European affairs, in order to hold of interests between Japan and America, be in a posithe Democratic capitalist clique at a respectable tion to play the part of a mediator between the two distance from participation in the joys of government, conflicting imperialisms, a contrary trend is evident But the United States was, nevertheless, compelled in the young Canadian imperialism, which is becomto take part in the game of world politics. The capi ing more and more dependent upon the United States talists of Europe and the Entente nations owe the and therefore cannot tolerate any aggravation of the United States 20 billion dollars.
delicate relations with its powerful neighbor.
Further developments in the conflicts prevalent in Thus Canada expressed itself in the imperial conEurope decided not only the question of whether the ference against the renewal of the alliance with Japan