It Seems That Big Jim Farley Has Never Heard of the NRA
tows that Drove I to Insurrection writes from Vienna a s LUr Blows of Reaction A l i f M D e r t i on E * - m o e * who Mr** w p i oy X (M Chrfc-t ten I gad the HeimL right) y re? u »n...
...The intense hate against he fallen regime was the driving force of tho revolution...
...Long live the SoHonall" Those were the last words of one of ullfuss hanged...
...But there ig one exception...
...Free from foreign interference and undisturbed by any organised domestic opposition of s popular character, the Soviet power had a vast field for Utopian projects and ths spirit of the late Larin, the classic dreamer, wo adequate enforcement of labor provisions in any industry unless workers are strongly organized in a trade union...
...its readiness to make political and militar alliances with Urn dictators el Italy and Turkey...
...Early on Monday the workers in the Floridsdorf factories demanded a protest strike against this arrest...
...The impression was given that non-compliance is a big worry to NRA heads and that they realize they must make a heroic attempt to enforce the codes...
...A third remittance to be made before this paper reaches its readM beginning...
...Meanwhile, the American Federation of Labor goes on emphasising that In organised labor lies the best hops of cods enforcement...
...Farley's course is regarded with increasing uneasiness by those in the Roosevelt Administration anxious to 'hold the support of organized labor...
...The long term and the unlimited power of the revolutionary government furnished a vast field for radical economic changes, the equal of which history has never before recorded...
...Stalin ar.d his corulers have this key...
...The result is dec-rear.' in purchasing power of many thousands of Government employees in every section of the country...
...The fastened that tin Provincial H* and the to if their deN- 'A Fascist M to be iiriini «yi when the Wng forward P Heimwehr I the leaders of pVnnd for the M districts in faces to be art weapons be'Wican Schutzbund, which had come to the knowledge of the police, in Vienna and the immediate neighborhood of Vienna, to bo confiscated...
...Sight now they ing and shelter...
...The Marxian school savel Bolshevism from perdition," wrote the late leader of the Menshevists, Martow...
...Code authority members and NRA officials agreed that code wages and work code hours, scandalous extent...
...Norman Thomas' charge that enforcement of NRA codes has utterly broken down was borne out by speaker after speaker at the general conference of code authorities and the preliminary public meetings...
...In that spirit our brave AusI already working to rebuild their movement • to torn defeat into victory...
...Despite slashing denunciation of armament manufacturers by Senators Nye, Borah and others, the Senate passed the "big navy" bill, previously approved by the House...
...In this the seventeenth year did not bring any improvement...
...The division of the land estates and the declared supremacy of the peasants was followed by the antipeasant policy of "Kombeds" and confiscation of all agricultural products, this was in its turn, replaced by a policy of free trade...
...As it is, even Communists grumble, even they are mistrusted...
...ir* was getting too dangerous...
...It Seems That Big Jim Farley Has Never Heard of the NRA By Observer Our Washington Correspondent (POSTMASTER - GENERAL * JAMKS A. FARLEY has apparently never icard of the NKA atiu its purpose to increase employment...
...They are beginning to fear Farley may prove to be the Albert Sidney Burleson of the Roosevelt Administratirn...
...As predicted last week in this department, business and industry dominated the gathering and the labor' point of view, while given a hearing, received Kant consideration...
...Me, and two (Wrovernment • have at least I the Socialist principal in the principal opposition to President Justo, a reactionary...
...The policy of flirting with the dllage was replaced by the program of mass exile of peasants, confiscation of their property and forced collectivization and mechanizath n. The latest policy, in its turn, marches in a bee-line, returning today what was expropriated yesterday id order to confiscate it again tomorrow...
...If in the first democratic period of the Russian revolution (March-Octoher 1017) it suffered from a too great dose of "realism" and too small of daring and swing, it was saved* during the rest of its turbulent life hy the crumbs of realism the Bolshevists inherited from their Marxian associations...
...This struggle between realism and fantasy, writes the Russian Socialist leader, between Marxian and Utopian Socialism was and still is the most striking characteristic of the Bolhevist stage of the Russian revolution" after military Communism (when an attempt was made to socialize everything) came the NEP, the "New Economic Policy" with Its capitalist tendencies in agriculture, industry and commerce...
...The events then took their course...
...These employees, who fiat | months have been in want anc | whose plight has been brought U , public attention hy hitter com plaints voiced by substitutes ir New York, Baltimore and othei cities, will now have no income a1 all...
...The Russian Socialists fight for such a solution of the most important revolutionary problem, the danger of a counter-revolution...
...Revolution and Labor Policies T H K same in other fields, including foreign trade dlplo* macy, and labor policy...
...He also ordered a payless furlough of four day- for post office clerks and letter carriers and one of a few less hours for railway mail clerks...
...The work must go on...
...its harried offer of Headship to Hitler, march last...
...If this was possible in a backward country, continues the author, the explanation lies primarily in the sphere of international politics...
...There re no capitalists, no bourgeois ress...
...Thig lack of sympathy derives its strengt'i from another source—the economic results of the revolution...
...t Fifteen of t he 80 Municipal Councillors were also elected in Buenos Ayres, and the Socialists elected eight or nine...
...TheWorkers Abroad An International Review of the Socialist and Labor Movement \ of the World —————— By Mark Khinov —————— The Russian Revolution After 17 Years (March 12, 1917 March 12, ltf.U) HPIIK Russian revolution continues its world record of longevity, the eminent Russian Socialist and member of the Foreign Delegation of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Menshcvist), I...
...And because of this Russia enters the 18th year of her revolution with a population animated by a growing and very dangerous animosity toward everyIhing connected with the revolution...
...Its place was taken by a system of piece work that reached a height absolutely unknown in any of the bourgeois countries and st present, thanks to the inflation policy of the Soviet Government, the real wages of the workers have a tendency to become "equalized," for even with money you can procure only the barest necessities...
...But through all the changes, phases, periods and variations of the economic policies the Russian workers and peasants felt that, technical progress notwithstanding, their living standard did not improve in comparison with the prewar status...
...This was then ridiculed as a foolish and childish interpretation of Communism and was liquidated...
...Wo can P more...
...Some are beginning to believe that the best method is to have organized labor do the enforcing, or "policing," as suggested by a New York regional labor board member...
...We cannot afford fo lei the victims of a I t you can, be it one dollar or a hundred...
...The free trade, after a lapse of a few years, was again killed by a policy of con.plete liquidation of private trade...
...However busy, indeed, the Bolstevist leaders of the revolution would be in building Utopias and manufacturing fantastic orders and decrees, there were always in the background, in their subconscious .-eserve a substantial t i n e of a realistic attitude toward conditions as they are, and whenever the water began to rise threateningly high Bolshevism would amaze the world by its ability to make a sharp turn...
...The current monthly business survey of the fadoration says: "Experience under codes has proved that it is futile to hops for thrays over the s p i r i t of th* late ICrassin, the businessman and realist par excellence . . . And thus we witness that what formerly was Russia Is now, at he end of seventeen revolutionary years, a country without private apitalism and almost without irivate economy of any kind...
...This impression was strengthened by a provocative communique, issued by Vice-Chancellor Fey on Saturday, February 11...
...This animosity is sometime violent, sometime passive, but it is still there...
...But the key to this solution is not in their hands...
...Dalin, once wrote...
...A gradual liquidation of the terror without liquidating the rev olition, a gradual introduction of I political democracy together with workers' and farmers' self-gov-1 I ernn.ent, and, most of all, a gradI ual peace arrangement with the...
...The Utopian i idea of forcing Stalin's "Socialism in i n e country" upon an un- . willing majority of the population is still the foundation of the Soviet Government...
...Prison, exiles, j mass-trials and execution are* still everyday events, after 17 years, as they were in the second and third year of the revolution...
...However, the government is still surrounded by millions of enemies...
...In the first two or three years, the revolution had to cope .vith ('-/.si i sm and its feudal heriage...
...Cr.arism is dead...
...He declared they are selling iiunltions in the Far East aad in the event of war with Japan, American soldiers and sailors would be "torn Mmb from limb and disemboweled'' by weapons made in America...
...i •roment «i> otter SchmiU III Mayor of I • ox there were , the governI ; for the tie Isnoeracy and lister for the Mr, announced tvsry shortly nasi conititub « "almost a nr this eoniti1 longer to N a m the baits •/ Social Minister i that there w trade onions Hi" but only sttois," and no U workers but it to decide in nsbilized as to, and armed st, confronted n»i>i, at first k the other ttaii'i in the fell that the amis should •vod and re- fCouncils, in r were to from which ft» be excluded...
...I t would be inaccurate to suppose that the Soviet does not see this danger...
...a .ountry where almost the whole i i .[Milaiinn is in the pay of the .overnment- directly or indirectv under the Col-Farm label...
...C. C. Sheppard, president of the National Lumber Manufacturers' Association and member of the lumber code authority, declared non-compliance, if not solved, will destroy the lumber code...
...Organized workers have a very definite function in the NRA program: To maintain and raise labor standards...
...For, friend and foe of the Soviet Union understand that the slightest perturbation— domestic or foreign—may provoke a "revolutionary" outbreak in comparison with which even Hitler's barbarian state would look like a Utopia...
...Our dollars, while providing needs, will also cheer and strengthen their l i a s already cabled $1,600...
...no trace of an economically ound farmer or of a farmers' •arty There are no stock or curb axchanges, no private banks, no trade ami commerce in the accepted meaning of these words...
...Since the end of the war no phrases have been used—and abused—so much ag "economic revival" and "industrialization...
...Senator Borah attacked armament manufacturers, saying they are bloodthristy as "Capone and Dllllnger...
...Yet, Fey knew quite well, of course, that the workers had kept their arms concealed since the Revolution of 1918, had never used them, and had only retained them in case it should he necessary to defend democracy against a Fascist attack...
...For without popular sympathy no government is stable and no social order is secure...
...j Other blows at purchasing pow I er are contained in thfe »'arley or der...
...The tragedy and the danger...
...Though the President urged further tutting of hours and increasing of wages and General Johnson made a qualified proposr.1 for a 10 per cent cut in hours, with a proportionate jump In wages, the conference gave no indication that it favored shorter working periods and higher pay...
...In this communique the arms dicovered by the police were represented as a proof of the existence of a "plot by MarxistBolshevik criminals" against the security of the State that compelled the Government to take ruthless action against those responsible within the very next few days...
...It was hunger and want, that drove the population to the revolution, and now, seventeen years later, the danger is still great, that this hunger and want may devour the revolution and drive the bitterly disappointed people into the arms of some counter-revolution...
...Kor never before has a revolution succeeded in keeping itself in power for so long a time without reversing its principal aim and without embarking on the downgrade of counter revolution...
...The Russian Socialists saw this danger long ago...
...Not willing to imitate the French revolution, the Soviet leaden gave up the plan to change the calendar, but they introduced the Five-Day Uninterrupted Week—in order to give them up, when the misery thus crested became too great And thus in almost everything...
...Tragedy of the Revolution1 AND in this lies the tragedy oi the Russian revolution...
...Practical opportunism, political realism came to the rescue whenever the situ ii...
...But even in intensity the Russian rev< lution has outdistanced all previous revolutions —None of them made as deep a change in the social relationship of people as the Russian phenomenon...
...i4/ter the NEP came the' Five-Year Plan with Its renewed attempt to introduce immediately "Socialism in one country...
...iThe revolutionary government did not succeed in its most important task—in winning the sympathy of the majority of the population and I the unbounded loyalty of its own I social base—the working class...
...its r.ew agreements with j Poland, Rumania, France, England and the United States—all of ' them were dictated by the fear of ' war and its dangerous partner— j a counter revolutionary outbreak...
...It was clear that Fey desired to use the weapons and explosives found in the Schwechater District, near Vienna, as a pretext for a decisive blow against the Social-Democratic Party, in the same way as Goring used the fire in the Reichstag...
...Postmasters are required to reduce mail deliveries and mail collections even below present restricted standards...
...On the very day that President RoOsevelt, before the gen eral conference of code autliori ties here, challenged industry to re-employ more people and de clared we must "now consider immediate cooperation to secure increase in wages and shortening of hours," Farley struck a tcr rific blow at higher wages and shorter hours hy throwing 26,000 postal substitutes on the breadline...
...Seventeen years is such a long time that political results should have been shown already...
...On Sunday, Comrade Stockhammer, a works council official who is much respected by the workers in Floridsdorf, the most highly industrialized district of Vienna, was arrested in Floridsdorf...
...But in Vienna, too, there was great agitation among the workers on Monday morning...
...I t seems that everything has ehanged during the sixteen or seventeen years of Soviet rule...
...Mtneously delation of the ratty and all lit which the •ajority...
...The Post Office Department is drastically to curtail service to the public...
...Utopian Fantasy IIOWKVKR, it must be noted, the Russian revolution had * * also on its domestic front important factors, which contributed to its longevity and intensity and saved it from counter-revolutionary liquidation...
...But this did not and could not last forever...
...And this was done, almost ai the same hour the President u>ai declaring, "The first task of in dustry is to create eonsumini 1 power...
...The attitude of millions of workers, peasants, intellectuals, the attitude of an o v e r w h e l m i n g majority of the population is now, as before, deeply antagonistic...
...This was naturally bound to give the workers the impression that at the very moment at which they intended to make their putsch against the democracy, the Heimwehr were attempting to make the workers defenseless and to disorganise the Schutzbund by arresting its local leaders...
...the coming year have better luck...
...Unless this function is properly performed, we cannot hope for balanced progress...
...Bnt in this perpetual struggle between Realism and Utopia, the later recorded more and greater victories than the first Two steps forward on the Utopian road and one backward upon the realistic and safe road of constructive Socialism...
...The workers in Vienna had a feeling that they could not leave the workers in Linz and Upper Austria in the lurch, could not leave them alone in the struggle, unless the whole of the working class was to be rendered powerless in one place after another and then to face the coup d'itat which was expected during the next few days, incapable of defending themselves...
...Let us hope so...
...He charged small firms are the worst offenders and caused a sensation by producing letters from a South Carolina Congressman advising a mill owner to work on a "commonsense basis" regardless of the code i.ml asserting his belief it was 1mposible for a mill owner to pay code wage and work code hours...
...It sees it and tries to lessen it...
...There is not a single large anti-Communist party in the Soviet Union...
...Agrarian majority of the population, would eliminate the danger of a counter-revolution and save the revolution...
...i FOR AUSTRIAN COMRADES C *, but you cannot kill us...
...Exchange and distribution of products Ho'v through different canals...
...This warning is being supported lately by some of the Russian Communists...
...Certain new laws and orders promulgated by them during the second half of I this year, including the new edi- 1 tion of the Second Five-"ear Plan, I again show ; 1 - i i s of that political realism, of which Dalin spoke...
...Time and again they warned about this danger...
...He said that ultimately the legislation would cost in the neighborhood of a million dollars and pointed out that Congress doesn't "bat an eye" when asked to vote large sums for war preparation, at the same time it is refusing aid to needy veterans...
...This applies to the "extensiveness," so to say, of the revolution...
...Sheppard contended the code had raised wages in his industry, despite violations, and threw a light on labor conditions by saying that before the code, wages were as low as 6 cents an hour...
...While this was still being discussed in the factories, it became known that street fighting was already taking place in Line...
...Nye assailed the bill as a "blustering and bullying" measure for the "relief of munitions makers...
...Do • your individual gifts, got your organisation to •B monies to the Socialist Party, 7 East 16th P I V E COMMITTEE, LOCAL N E W YORK...
...What are they...
...It still fears to give the population the minimum of political rights, the most limited expression of civil liberties, for Stalin and his codictators know that the slightest political reforms may become politically dangerous for the dictatorship...
...In the latter realm, for instance, there prevailed at'the beginning the policy of equal pay tor every Soviet citizen without exception...
...Vacations earned by em 1 ployees are to he postponed and all I privileges resulting from length of I service are abrogated...
...Its whole foreign policy, its extreme efforts to escape a war with Japai...
...But here they run squarely up against the oppos ion of employers and the fact that workers are poorly and ineffectively organized, if at all, in some industries and trades...
...tows that Drove I to Insurrection writes from Vienna a s LUr Blows of Reaction A l i f M D e r t i on E * - m o e * who Mr** w p i oy X (M Chrfc-t ten I gad the HeimL right) y re? u »n Sttempt Lakyed to join , Ittrsde anions, I pnW »" ini the workers M Heimwehr...
...Uprooted and destroyed are all the landowners, capitalists, bankers and their political parties...
...Never before was a great revolution born as a result of a World War, which undermined foundation in all countries, exhausted material and moral reserves and left as its heritage, beside the ruins, the deepest animosities and the most complicated and unsettled conflicts Realism vs...
...Nor was "Big Jim" content with this...
...There was now no more waiting...
...On the contrary, it showed that it wag opposed to further change...
...And because of this fear even the convocation of the Communist Congress had to be postponed for almost three years, and when it was decided to call it a safe majority was assured through the pre conve...
...War profiteers, Borah declared break down governments and kill human beings—fer nothing bat sordid gain...
...t ion expulsion of hundreds of thousands of members...
...A large majority of the population is still bitterly opposed to the government and only a small minority is for i t The rt ling group Is still forced to rely only on compulsion, force, terror...
...Political and Economic Accomplishments IN the face of all these great and radical transformations, one is bound to ask, what is the sum total of these changes from the point of view of the population...
...Self-government has not yet replaced the military methods, al- J though the civil war vtas ended over 13 years ago...
...I Unfortunately these healthy re-1 forms and concessions are very small and insufficient...
...The order withdrew all allow , ances for employment of substi | tutes...
Vol. 17 • March 1934 • No. 10
