As the Steel Work
Stein, Rose M.
As the Steel Work Masters Use Every Vile Ru| Workers—Employers Si War—Barbed Wi By Rose M. Stein Pittsburgh. THE most frequently asked question in steel districts today is, "Will there be...
...The steel workers are neither solidly organized nor adequately prepared to wage that war...
...6, NoMl-12 quoted from the Workers Age) issue of June 1, 1934...
...For the victorious Labor Party made no secret of its intention to inaugurate a drastic redistribution of wealth and thus lay the foundation for a new Socialist society...
...The Labor Party was six votes short for its task of conquering power for Socialism by parliamentary means of education and organization...
...This is pure bunk...
...It is a foregone conclusion that the Johnson plan will be rejected...
...The thirty-one Conservative deputies, the twenty-three Farmer deputies, the one Radical, and the twenty-seven deputies of Mowinckel's own party—all of them supported the Premier in this breach of parliamentary ethics...
...It was necessary, under present conditions, to win over part, or all, of the Farm deputies...
...Premier Mowinckel's government refused to resign before the opening of the new Storthing in January and continued his refusal even after the new Parliament met and elected a Socialist as its president...
...It was lost only because the majority of the 35 Neo-Socialist deputies voted against it...
...In this election, for instance, only in one city (out of 341...
...The armed Socialist guard of Polish and Jewish Socialists is therefore continually on guard and almost permanently in "action...
...And this meant that the fate of Norwegian capitalism was at stake...
...Admittedly the steel industry is the hardest to organize and to combat...
...The steel industry is preparing for war...
...This plan, which practically nullities Section 7a of the NRA and sets up the company union as the chief instrument of workers' representation for purposes of collective bargaining, is unpalatable even to the older and more conservative leaders...
...Tomaszow— was there realized a real united front of labor, a Socialist-Communist fusion ticket "from above," which won 15 seats...
...who know oi they are oui other employ British Labor The Socialist 1 TPHE story which any correspondent has to tell of what is happening with the labor anff Socialist mqvement in Great Britain is becoming almost monotonous : a record of the capture of parliamentary scats from the government whenever and wherever, a bye-election gives us the opportunity of pressing the attack...
...You've had I have seen 1 splendidly >1 have beenW' —that the...
...against a tl of beating I ment...
...And no one quite knows the answer...
...The rank and file leaders have frankly denounced the plan as "an insult to every American worker" and an effort "to tighten the company union chains that bind workers in the steel industry...
...Moscow may change its mind...
...The delegates who met in the April convention of the Amalgamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers at which time action to seek union recognition was taken, will reconveneiin Pittsburgh Thursday, June 14, to consider the Johnson peace plan and the likelihood of a walkout...
...Far from it...
...But it would be a mistake to thiak that the race with fascism is finally won in Poland...
...Since the Socialists increased their representation by...
...The official Communist Party, for many years an important factor in the local labor movement, is still opposed to a real united front of workers...
...i Mill officials have been given orders to "talk down" the Amalgamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers as a "Hunky Union" that no redblooded American or "self-respecting foreigner" would have anything to do with...
...Since all these victories were achieved under conditions of "legal" and illegal terror and intiirtidation, with the most prominent leaders in exile, with a press appearing almost daily with white spaces, "censored," columns with actual street battles and fascist pogroms supplementing election meetings—the importance of these victories cannot be overestimated...
...On J TheWorkers Abroad An International Review of the Socialist and Labor Movement of the World By Mark Khinoy Norway's Political Drama Reaches Its Climax DREMIER JOHAN L. MOWINCKEL of Norway is now due for a fall...
...But the change will probably come too late, when both Socialist and Communist parties will be already destroyed and annihilated by a triumphant Naziism...
...Will the international office of the Amalgamated be ready to bear that expenditure and will some of the other unions be willing to help in the work ? Upon the answer to these questions depends largely the outcome of the entire undertaking . It^ is hard to conceive that the Amalgamated and the AFoL are so short-sighted as not to see the importance of coping real soon with the steel situation...
...Cafeterias, thrown into disuse since the steeel code has done away with the lunch hour for steel workers, are being cleaned up and made ready for use...
...Furthermore, neither Tranmael or Colbhjornsen could be classified as Social-Democratic leaders of the Labor Party...
...The Socialist leaders appear to be in fa\or of it, the Moscowdominated Communist leaders are, however, against it...
...and if that were the whole story I should be content simply to record Hammersmith and the Tjpfon division of West Ham as fresh examples of that steady march to power which has been manifest here for the past year...
...Remarkable Socialist victories were also recorded in such cities as Kalisz (60,000), Lublin (120,000), Tomoizow, Tsrnow (17 aldermen), Konin, Konsk, Novidwor, Kaluszin, end more than s score of other cities and towns...
...Daily terrorist raids on Socialists and pogroms on Jews are part of the fascist campaign of intimidation...
...But more important would be an agreement for united anti-fascist action in the shops, factories and streets...
...Over 100 of them are members of the Jewish Socialist "Bund" and the remainder are representatives of the Polish Socialist Party...
...According to one report, the Socialists have agreed even to join a Farmer-Labor coalition government with the...
...Renaudel Resigns DIERRE RENAUDEL, cbair* man of the Neo-Socialist deputies in the French Parliament, has just.resigned from his post as a protest against the action of the majority of the group in voting against the election bill of the Socialist Pfrty...
...This news, if confirmed, may mean that Norway's silent political drama is approaching its climax...
...The sole purpose of a deferment is to build up the organization and that will make it necessary to send many organizers into the field which in turn will require large expenditures...
...Following the Stalin line of "unity from below" they are still rendering help to the fascist hordes by all their political, "educational" and organization activity...
...The Communist (Party of the United States had a ^tirs-over" of 36,000 members betwee\Vanuary, •1930, and the latter parKof 1932 (Party Organizer, Vol...
...My pessimism was fortunately not entirely justifiedThe Socialist defeat and the victory of the ultra-blrfek fascists was not repeated in any of the other cities of Poland...
...There are, nevertheless, many unknown quantities in this announced union...
...leashed, might result in...
...It seemed that in the race between Socialism and fascism in semi-fascist Pilsudski Poland, all the odds nre for fascism, with its triumph only weeks or at best months off...
...Whether the strike comes this June or a year from now is neither as definite nor important as the fact that come it must...
...The Nara party is making great strides among the unemployed and hungry masses and is feeding on the deep-rooted antiSemitism and anti-Communism of the middle class and the restlessness of the "futureless" youth...
...farm leader Hundsheid as Premier...
...They did almost as well in Bialystok—a city of over 100,000 people—and Radom (65,000), where the Polish Socialist Party (P.P.S...
...There is, however, a vast store of accumulated grievances that, if un...
...The older men have been given to understand that if they go out on strike they will be fired and lose their chance of a mysterious « "Group of upon the ton Communists town...
...The forward march of fascism could be stopped in Poland only if real unity of organized labor could be achieved...
...500 Socialist Aldermen Elected in Pilsudski Poland I AST week, when commenting on the municipal electioni in Poland of May 27, I stressed the important victory of the fascist Nora party in the largest and most Important industrial center, Lodz, where this violently anti-Semitic, anti-Socialist and anti-Pilsudski NationalDemocratlc Party won 72 seats to the Socialist 11 and Pilsudski-ite 7. Since this town of German manufacturers and Polish workers was previously considered a "red" city and had even a worker-.' majority in its municipal council, the fascist victory did not augur well for Socialism or democracy in .Poland...
...The first act was played in the parliamentary election of last fall, when the Labor Party secufed 46'/i of the total vote and elected 69 deputies out of a total of 150, against 47 in the previous House...
...This did not happen...
...Bunks used during the 1919 strike to house scabs have been rebuilt and are ready for occupancy...
...a far stronger uprising than even the most enthusiastic of the leaders dare prophesy at the moment...
...Moreover, in a number of cities and towns the Socialists scim'd remarkable victories...
...All in all, between 600 and 600 Socialist aldermen have been elected...
...Ten more cities are still to be beard from...
...The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation has put up in its Pittsburgh plant a barbed wire fence that Is being electrified...
...THE most frequently asked question in steel districts today is, "Will there be a strike...
...has an absolute mnjority, independent cf lis fusion partner, the Jewish Socialist Party "Bund...
...But this is still an impossibility...
...Among those close to the scene there is unanimous agreement that a strike is inevitable, it is merely a question of how soon it will break and what will be its scope...
...Beyond these two points every inch of the way will have to be fought...
...Both are former Communist 'leaders, high in Moscow councils...
...The steel industry, on the other hand, is even better prepared and more firmly determined now than it was fifteen years ago, to fight unionization...
...New squads of deputies have been brought in and these are practicing in the art of firing tear-gas and dispersing pickets...
...has not onlj debacle of« tioti but hw so greatly bility of a 1 power whe takes place-* not merely the picture i Hut there story than These two e Ham in par...
...In the others the "Left" (Communist) Party went separately and although they scarcely elected more than twelve councilmen they helped to'victory a number of fascist candidates...
...The incomprehensible and reactionary action of the *Neo group in Parliament came two days after their national convention* decided to support this-particular motion of the Socialist Party...
...Carloads of cots and bedding have been brought in where there were none before or taken out of storage where such supplies were available...
...The Farmers' Party, holding 23 n-ats in .the Storthing, is ready to put the skids under the cabinet in retaliation for the insufficiency of itt measures favoring the farmers...
...Since I wrote last there have Ikch two more seats captured...
...277 voted for the Socialist motion and 288 against...
...If the Farmers' Party should now change its position, then this would signify that Norway is on the eve of a "Workers' and Farmers' dictatorship" gained through democratic, parliamentary, means...
...The 1919 defeat is still remarkably fresh in the memory of many of the workers and tfiese are not very eager to face another defeat of equal or greater proportion...
...Many of the plants are prepared to house large numbers of workers inside the mills...
...COME of our Communist brethren reported lately that two Socialist leaders of the Norwegian Labor Party, Colbjornsen and Tranmael, are turning fascist, for they advocate a "fascist Action Program...
...It is equally certain that the strike will' not be called for June 16, the date originally set for the walkout...
...Under such a condition the contradiction of economic interests of farmers on the one hand and the bankers and industrialists on the other was temporarily ironed out, and the capitalist coalition continued to rule over Norway...
...We will have to reserve judgment until the union is officially consummated...
...The 69 Socialist members are willing to help the farmers accomplish the task...
...Their "Action Program" or "Depression Plan" is much further from fascism than the Planned Economy of the Soviet Union, for it is based on political and industrial democracy, no trace of which could be found in the theories or practice of the Stalin Communists...
...They captured the important industrial center Piotrkow, where they elected 22 aldermen nut of a total of 40—a clear majority...
...The effect hard to app many are beii is especially...
...22 deputies and the ruling capitalist parties recorded a corresponding loss, the rules of the game demanded the resignation of the cabinet and an invitation to the labor leader Halvard Olsen to organize a. new cabinet...
...However, all previous efforts in this direction failed...
...One—Colbjornsen—left Moscow and joined the Labor Party only in 1931...
...The former head of the Communist Party, Frossard, was the author and only spokesman of the Socialist Party motion to revise immediately the eleotion law on the basis of proportional representation pnd immediate dissolution of the Parliament...
Vol. 17 • June 1934 • No. 24
