An Appeal for Unity!
WARSHOW, ADOLPH
An Appeal for Unity! Open Letter to American Socialists By ADOLPH WARSHOW ^JNITY between the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist Party has become an indispensable necessity. Facing...
...Elizabeth H. Thomas...
...Ernest R. Dalley...
...If I were to write a composite interview in regulation newspaper style, the "lead" would have to be...
...Since Munich, with the so-called "democratic" alignment practically smashed, the Kremlin unquestionably baa redoubled its efforts to neutralize Hitler by placating him...
...WHERE THE NEWS ENDS By EUGENE LYONS IlfHEN anyone like this columnist does the listening, instead of " the lecturing, in a discussion of Russia ft is news of the man...
...The weakness is in the quality...
...They must likewise eliminate any attempts to assign blame for the split...
...Reactionary Federalism died in the time of Monroe and was absorbed by a conservative Democracy...
...Saltonstall Acts to Oust Rear-don.'' With a swift kick in the rear, eh Governor...
...They can and should be brought together in a united Socialist movement...
...Defective construction aad mishandling are certain to turn thousands of tanks and airplane.motors and other technical equipment into war casualties—and the flow of spare parts will be as erratic and as inadequate as in peace-time...
...When the test comes—in a serious defeat, or a punishing battle-it may be expected to crack...
...It has been carrying through a purge of the army, naval and aviation commands without precedent in military history...
...a war of armored tanks, airplanes, chemistry and munitions manufacture...
...A responsibility faces us which we cannot disregard...
...They are now entirely at one with us in their opposition to Stalinism...
...If they enter the committee-room in the proper spirit, unity will be an accomplished fact...
...DIVIDED DEMOCRATS PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT said at the Jackson Day dinner in Washington that no intelligent person would say that the Democratic Party from 1840 to 1876 was the party of Jefferson and Jackson, or that the Republican Party from 1968 to 1938, except from the short period under Teddy Roosevelt, had been the party of Lincoln...
...But is he wise...
...The war, obviously, would be a mechanised conflict beyond any war of the past...
...Jackson split this conservative amalgamation by his success in 1828 and voiced the interests of small freeholders in the West and South...
...At this crucial moment, they must steadfastly think in terms of the higher and nobler objectives for which we all stand...
...This should provide a vast business in exports to Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia and help to bring about recovery in this country...
...What was lost by the split can be regained by reunion...
...I questioned each of them separately...
...In short, Russia will fight if no other alternative (short of ceding territory) should remain...
...They no longer speak of democracy as 'bogus' and have emphatically repudiated the notorious "Road to Power' resolution...
...Certainly no one worthy of the name of Socialist can honorably permit quarrels over prestige and influence to stand m the way of the great aim for which we all must work in common...
...It is now up to Chamberlain and Daladier to choose between this policy and their own...
...The split was due to basic issues of democracy in the party and democracy in methods, policies, programs, philosophy and aims of the Socialist movement...
...a party which talks loudly of democracy but (finds no means too dirty, no adjectives too low and no slander too crude to discredit those who refuse to follow its line...
...The Daily Worker has been giving many columns to the case ha a policy of slopping over the man they double-crossed...
...A COSTLY LUXURY IT is a tragedy that in the proposed Federal budget of nine billion dollars, over a billion and a quarter will be spent for defense and armament...
...For a brief period its armed forces may even give a good account of themselves...
...Thousands all over America who left the Socialist movement before and after the split, thousands who have become disillusioned with Communist charlatanism, thousands of unattached progressives who find the New Deal a palliative but not a cure for America's ills, and, finally, thousands of trade-unionists who seek to break the back of bureaucratic Stalinist domination are now disorganized and politically homeless...
...Vigilante committees generally put an end to the bullies, that end being bandits dangling from ropes suspended from the nearest tree...
...Our western bullies disappeared when they found that their business .was undermined by collective opposition and that it had become personally dangerous to them aa well...
...The order "was issued in Russia by the Commissar of Machine Building and all's well in the Workers' Fatherland...
...By chance I encountered and proceeded to pump three men relatively fresh from the Soviet Union in a single week., Two of them were Americans: a metallurgical engineer who had been deep inside the industrial structure of Russia, including its military compartments, and a writer...
...The truth is that when the Socialist Party split three years ago it ceased to be a force in American life and politics...
...Only a smoothly operating industrial set-up behind the lines can assure the effective operation of a modern fighting machine...
...It has ceased to be a matter of choice...
...In this domain, too, there are no spare parts...
...GIVES NEWS AND HONEST VIEWS" Editor of The New Leader: We value your paper very highly...
...It was broken by Hitler, not by Stalin...
...Drinking and Smoking Barred to Nazi Youth...
...The most striking fact about their views is that they were in substantial agreement on the subject of the country's war strength...
...If we are now all democratic Socialists there should be little difficulty in clearly stating these views without equivocation The joint committee will soon meet and it is probable that it will submit a report to both organizations within a month or two.—Editor.] WATCH YOUR STEP, TOM *FHE .Communist Party and its disguised "innocents clubs are doing their utmost to capitalize the release of Tom Mooney and to enlist him in one or more of its enterprises...
...The more that timid souls yielded to "appease" the bullies, the more the latter This sort of thing was also typical of many western communities in mis country when mounted bullies shot up towns and limed ranches...
...The Russo-Japanese war ended in revolution against the Russian government...
...The Department of Commerce at Washington should take notice...
...It is really too good, I think, and "over the heads" of the unthinking masses who have never tried to understand anything deeper than the standing of the baseball teams, but I cannot blame you for not "writing down" to their level...
...He has been begging for the embrace...
...He then suddenly turned against his real friends and became the stooge of anarcho-syndicalists of Che Browder and W. Z. Foster type...
...Now that the Communist Party USA has dropped its revolutionary mask and slapped on a "progressive" false-face it ought to change its name to the Bull Moose Party —amd we don't mean moose...
...What Glenn F. needs is a huddle with a good union organizer who will show the diffident Lou Littles how to hold that picket-line >. • • • The President's $*,aes,se«,se« budget doeaa't badge as one way or another...
...And he will pay any price for it, there is reason to believe, short of ceding territory...
...Will it continue the Jackson analogy by casting out its Bourbon faction> That question may be answered next year...
...We presume that no one will object to a united movement that is based upon a real understanding and embodied in decisions that leave no room for two or more interpretations...
...THHESE committees must, when B they meet, forget the personal animosities and antagonisms which brought about the split and which, unfortunately, still exist in some quarters...
...It gives us news as well as honest views that we never get...
...approximately this: The Soviet regime will fight, if necessary, to defend the territorial integrity of its country, bet will not be able to stand up in a long-drawn war, according to three qualified observers of the Russian political aad industrial scene recently from * Russia...
...The transportation system, overloaded and limping even in peace-time, would scarcely hold together long under the pressure of war...
...The introduction of such a question would at best be fruitless and at worst might by itself prevent any effort at reasonable negotiation...
...What is gratifying about Mr...
...The Stalin dictatorship, they pointed out, is deeply committed i to maintaining the present frontiers of the Soviet empire intact...
...Success to your light hi the darkness, and may its influence extend further and further until it reaches our entire country...
...That is the fight for unity of all forces that have retained their faith in the ultimate aim of socialism...
...Too many of the best commanders have been exterminated...
...It is well established that the Soviet-German alliance, even in its military phase, continued more than a year after the Nazis came to power...
...Mrs...
...g There are interesting analogies in the three periods...
...too many- loyalties have been shaken and rotted by doubt...
...Had the United States cooperated with other nations in maintaining world peace through the League of Nations, had it helped to strengthen and improve the League, there would have been an international agency to check the totalitarian bandits, whose threat to the Western Hemisphere is now real, and leas reason for this costly armament Isolation is a terribly luxury and the bills are now due...
...Open Letter to American Socialists By ADOLPH WARSHOW ^JNITY between the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist Party has become an indispensable necessity...
...Aad so, back to economic barbourism...
...According to the Paris articles of B. Krovitzky even the Franco-Russian pact was looked upon by Stalin as bargaining strength in his consistent objective of maneuvering Hitler into some type of collaboration...
...The Communists have undoubtedly been an unmitigated evil influence that has set the cause of Socialism back for at least a generation...
...Voter, the synthetic citizen of the Dictatorships, can only utter a meek—Ja or Da or Si—the German, Russian and Italian, respectively, for an obeisant yes...
...The same applies to the rank-and-file, both in the uniformed forces and in the population...
...M. E. Edson...
...Let us not seek false encouragement...
...This despite the fact that it was the whole labor movement and millions of decent men and women who alone are entitled to the credit for Torn Mooney's release while the Communist International Labor Defease collected money for his case and kept it...
...Your incomparable paper is almost the only journal in the United States that brings out these vital facts...
...Voder of Philadelphia is his ability to say, among other things, both yes and no—while across the sea Mr...
...Large sectors of the country are now undernourished and undersupplied because of transportation troubles—the tension and the added burdens of war would be likely to raise those troubles to a pitch of disaster...
...i THE MECHANICAL TALKER ingenious electric device has been invented that talka Of American origin, it consists of a machine with a keyboard operated by one person...
...Florida...
...It must be obvious to anyone not blinded by personal prejudices that a united Socialist Party would have every chance in its favor...
...We never starred in Astronomy anyway...
...Thereafter the Kremlin did not cease to labor for some hew formula of friendship' with the Nazi masters of Germany...
...Our apparent differences on collective security and the approach to the New Deal are no longer so violent as to prove an insuperable barrier if a genuine desire for unity permeates the deliberations of the committees who are soon to discuss the question...
...J* ———^—— WE RESTRAIN OUR WRATH order in a steel plant which establishes the infamous stretch-out system by requiring workers to increase output _25 per cent for leas pay is outrageous...
...Haywood's influence for good rapidly melted away...
...Naturally, why waste time on such mild vices when there are so many more vicious vices for the young Germaniacs to indulge in...
...The World War ended in Russian Revolution...
...I TNDER these circumstances, ^ with the progressive population of America either entirely confused and disillusioned or else blindly following a corrupt leadership, <we socialists have only one course open...
...Wisconsin...
...A strike is believed...
...THE human side of the equation is not any niore reassuring to * the Kremlin...
...Letters To the Editor SEES ISOLATIONIST AS "INTERNATIONAL SCAB" , Editor of The New Leader: We cannot help feeling sorry for the scab who has a wife sad young children to support, and naturally loves them more than his fellow-workers and his union...
...THERE MUST BE UNITY...
...His acquittal was largely due to the extensive cooperation of the whole labor movement, the Socialist Party, and humanitarians who were outraged at the frame-up...
...Finally, their present position on the united front, the trade union movement, and the Labor Party is essentially the same as ours...
...The next war may be expected to follow the historical pattern...
...If the Voder were created in a totalitarian country it would no doubt be called—a Dicta to rphone...
...There is small reason to assume that the mechanized portions of the national defense can count on a much higher efficiency quotient...
...The stronger our belief in the justice and ultimate triumph of our cause, the more carefully must we avoid complacency and shallow optimism...
...Twelve years later the old gang recovered control of the party, 'lfi 1856 a new party, the Republican, split the old Democracy and the new Whig Party and the election of Lincoln in 1860 completed the job...
...The emasculation of Socialist ideals and the revision of slogans can be covered with' words, but not the yielding of Soviet soil to an invader...
...The third was a Russian at one time high in the Kremlin councils...
...He might have added that the Jeffersonian party from the inauguration of Monroe in 1817 to the nomination of Jackson in 1828 was not Jeffersonian...
...If the Nazi-Soviet rappreachement deea net take place, the faalt will certainly not be Stalin's...
...A few men, to be sure, have retained some prominence, but it is a newspaper prominence belonging to the men and not to their parties...
...The Democratic Party is repeating this history with the rise of a faction that is close to the conservative Republicans...
...The situation is like that of a neighborhood continually disturbed by bar-room bullies, the bullies hooting defiance of the neighbors, kicking some in the face, hUfkniailinj, others who pay to avoid annoyance, and keeping MMtpls" in a stabs of nervous apprehension...
...We apologize for our mistake...
...allow their small differences to bulk larger then the great objectives to which they " have dedicated themselves...
...The patriotic faith in its government which toughens a people's resistance in the face of disasters or even temporary defeats is lacking in Russia...
...Whatever ideological differences existed at the time of the split have since almost completely disappeared...
...The consensus of opinion of my three sources—namely, that the Red forces are likely to crack under the strain—rests largely on their conviction that the Soviet Union, de- ;' spite its over-advertised industrialisation, is technically weak...
...i Voder versus Voter Last week the Bell Telephone, Laboratories introduced, at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, a new synthetic speaking device— and christened it Voder—a gadget that gabs like a man with only a slight "electrical accent...
...a party which has completely abandoned its revolutionary tenets and can offer only a program of political opportunism so cynical that it cannot conceivably end in anything but disaster...
...The remaining commanders are,under the surveillance of "civilian commissars," which is to say, direct agents of the Stalin clique set to guard the political morals of the military men...
...Quantitatively the Kremlin has large resources in all these respects...
...Upon his release Haywood made a tour pf the nation and for some months had the united support of all these elements in big mass meetings...
...In the long run, his family will be far safer if his job is protected by an organization than if it is left to the mercy of capitalists...
...from the voluminous daily press...
...The same rule applies internationally, and the forces of labor and democracy must join hands across^he Atianjfjc andttbn!,Jj(||(tiftf, which are now so easily crossed...
...We only wish that hundreds of thousands could have The New Leader...
...The timid souls,—France and England-—are now less timid while Hitler's gang, accepting the Roosevelt speech as a blow to their trade hopes, is a little gloomy...
...Watch your step, Tom...
...At the highest levels of command the percentage of purgees tends to approach one hundred...
...are the cause of the disintegration and decline of power and influence of Socialism all over the world, and are the excuse—if not the cause—for the rise of Fascism and Nazism with their abominations...
...Your future is before you...
...Some of these hand-picked monitors are also being liquidated—which only makes the picture of general mistrust and disorganization more startling...
...For a decade, moreover, it has propagated a chauvinistic national* ism which makes retreat on that issue well-nigh impossible—that would make retreat, indeed, politically fatal...
...Facing insidious forces that operate today from the extreme right and the so-called left, Socialists who have devoted their lives to the building of a better and saner world cannot, and MUST NOT...
...Obedience is deeply planted in the Russian character...
...At the same time, a bomb-proof building with an underground retreat for the Fuehrer has been completed in Berlin to protect him from the loving regard of the German masses and the tender ^IeClli?,, */ 0tMr peoples- Tneir hill for reparations will stagger Adolph when the account is presented in full...
...They cannot follow both, and the masses of their own countries give every indication of favoring the American policy...
...It is no secret that a large proportion of Soviet tractors—at times as high as 50 per cent—are normally out of commission because of lack of spare parts...
...Do not spoil your opportunity for great and valuable service...
...Haywood was acquitted...
...Those reports have been relayed, among others, by Walter Duranty of the New York Times, Demaree Bess of the Christian Science Monitor, M. W. Fodor of the Manchester Guardian, and the veteran British journalist Wickham Steed...
...Meanwhile there is danger of leadership in the radical movement passing into the hands of the Communist Party, whose moral and intellectual bankruptcy becomes more pronounced daily...
...bites-dog variety...
...It has no brains of its own, it cannot strike or organize against the dictatorship, and its response to a dairy thought ration is automatic and instantaneous...
...We make no charge fOr the tip...
...Those who now constitute the membership of the Socialist Party- have by their actions, as well as by specific resolutions passed at their conventions in 1937 and 1938, discarded the Detroit declaration and have adopted as their basic policy the attainment of socialism by democratic means...
...There seems to be an urgent need for some medium for reaching the Trillions of infantile-minded adult, but very few who have become educated in political economy seem to have the ability to talk I baby-talk again...
...The officers executed, exiled and demoted probably run into tens of thousands...
...The two parties which emerged from the split have rapidly dwindled in numbers, and have lost all importance...
...A NOTE ON REPARATIONS |T m reported that Hitler is going to demand the return of all money paid on account of German reparations...
...He was isolated and the movement he deserted moved on without him...
...Pressing the keys, the operator makes the machine say whatever the human control desires...
...Therefore, the . American isolationist is simply an international scab—no wiser, than the individual scab who betrays his own union...
...As long as* the Red Army and its auxiliaries remain victorious, this purged and overseered leadership may continue* to function...
...Liberal and progressive America is in the direct need of sane leadership...
...This machine is what every dictatorship needs to perfect its ruthless rule...
...America is no longer isolated...
...Coaching the Coaches Glenn F. Thistlethwaithe of the University of Richmond, chairman of the football coaches' association stabilizing committee, recently reported that coaches generally were apathetic toward a study of ways whereby their jobs could be made more secure...
...Personal likes and dislikes must give way to the exigencies of the time...
...Barbour Demands WPA Liquidation...
...I believe that that excesses, blunders and unscrupulous dictatorial policies of the rulers of U.S.S.R...
...Whether all this induces Mooney to take the fatal step that rained William D. Haywood thirty years ago -we do not know...
...But how long would the fighting machine hold together...
...By Ben Belsky Charades and Barricades QNE can imagine some smart Clivcdenizen—possibly Goeffrey Dawson, editor of the* London Times—on reading that the French Schneider-Creusot interests sold their shares in Skoda munitions to Hitler interests, wise-' crack — that, my Lords, deserves another whisky and Skoda...
...FINOS NEW LEADER "BEST SOCIALIST PUBLICATION" Editor if The New^tSdtr: Although the genuine Socialist movement seems to be at an a*-j time low in this country, we certainly have in The New Leader | the best Socialist publication for (thinking people that we have ever had...
...CHALLENGING THE DICTATORS pRESlt5E??T ROOSEVELTS attack on the dictatorships in his message to Congress may prove to be a turning point in international relations...
...Soviet industry is still generations away from that dependable smoothness...
...Saa Francisco, Calif...
...That speech is also a direct challenge to the French-British policy of "appeasement" with its crawling before the bullies and the prospect of throwing another nation to Hitler to be butchered...
...With the membership of both groups clamoring for unity, a basis should and can he found upon which to merge the two groups and with renewed hope and energy to rebuild the movement that was so ruthlessly destroyed by the folly of some and the treachery of others...
...Piling insult on arrogance, the order also imposes the discharge of any worker who reports twenty minutes late...
...A GAINST this background, the insistent reports that Stalin is "** seeking a rapproachment with Adolph Hitler gain in credibility...
...The committee-members must be animated by a sincere desire to find a common ground upon which we can together begin the building of a greater and more influential Socialist movement...
...both of them have long years of Soviet residence to their credit...
Vol. 22 • January 1939 • No. 2
