A Letter PM Refused to Print - Facts on Erlich and Alter
NOWOGRODSKY, MANUEL
Letters To the Editor A Letter PM Refused to Print — Facts on Erlich and Alter From MANUEL NOWOGRODSKY Secretary, American Reprtaentatton of General Jewilk Worker! Union of Poland. To the...
...Doesn't this recall shades of a meeting in Kings County last Fall tor the American Labor Party...
...Tomorrow—who knows...
...If the "Peace Now" racket is as bad as our N. Y. Pott, PM and other papers recently reported it to be, what is our learned, libersl and hightly respected (?) Dr...
...If experience should teach us anything, it certainly should prove that the communists are the most unpredictable element we have...
...Our desr Dr...
...Throughout their lives, both Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter were engaged not vaguely, but vigorously, in an ideological struggle against the views of Trotsky...
...greater menace than the known and openly discredited appeasers and isolationists...
...I recall a Parents-Teachers meeting in a so-called "communist-stronghold" territory, at which Board elections were to be held...
...Both were found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed...
...The commies know ths value of concentration of power...
...Peace Now," indeed...
...Some Warnings on Communist Tactics in the Labor Party Fro ¦ CLAIRf COMORAU GROSMf • To the Editor: As one of the first staff workers of the American Lnbor Psrty at its inception in 1936, I want to say something about the American Labor Party as it appears to me today...
...So let us not expend our energies needlessly...
...I agree with Hunter that net only Shintoism and militarism and imperialism, but also the Emperor, should be wiped out, just as Fascism must be wiped out...
...I congratulate The New Leader for its usual abhorence of chauvinism...
...But who can depend on this...
...Says Hartmann Is a Menace From HERMAN UEBMAN To the Editor: After reading, with blood in my eye...
...They seek out the less populated districts and work harder there...
...2. It is not true that "the two men had once before, in August, 1941, stood trial on similsr charges and had been condemned...
...For goodness' sokes, don't let them fool you...
...And some American-born Japanese have also been victims of the disease of Shintoism...
...a negotiated peace to escape destruction and be in a perfect position to resume the csrnsge ten years hence...
...Hartmanns, who do not just opinionate but actually go out and organize agsinit the war effort, should not be given even indirect aid and comfort in our libersl press...
...did a lot of harm to American Russian relations...
...But bear in mind that we must work...
...4. It is not true that they were "rearrested and re-condemned at a time when Polish-Soviet relations were becoming strained...
...A banquet and other extravagant expressions of cordiality and friendship were accorded General Sikorski...
...In order to establish the real facts of the case, the American Representation of the General Jewish Workers' Union of Poland sent the following letter to I'M, but that newspaper has not printed the letter: I nm taking the liberty of asking you to publish the following lines hot because I wish to argue with the viewpoint revealed in Joachim Joesten's article entitled "Poles Played a Nasi Game by Asking Katyn Probe," which appeared in your newspaper on the 16th of Feb-rusry, but because I went to establish the truth regarding the tragic case of Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, prominent Jewish Socialist leaders of Poland, who were executed by the Soviet Government...
...It was almost two o'clock when the chairman, who apparently didn't comprehend the communist tactics and didn't have a well organized group to help him, called it quits and practically lost Kings County to the left wingers...
...Let's get out where the work is most necessary and comparatively simple...
...At that time, in December, 1941, General Sikorski called upon Stalin at the Kremlin...
...In the long run, it will be hard, down to earth foot work, that will do the trick...
...Now how about an article tackling the tough and unpopular problem of how to rid Japan of Shintoism and create the conditions necessary for the slow growth of democracy within that unfortunate country...
...why does Dr...
...Exactly what Hitler is holding out for...
...aiv...
...Last but not least is the "United Front" racket...
...Any one who is gullible enough and just a little bit too lazy to go to the polls, can be taken in by this line...
...But with both Germans and Japanese, these evils are environmental and political—not inherent in Japanese or German character...
...The primaries this Spring, will not only decide the fate of the American Labor Party, as to whether it will be a vital potent factor for labor oi a party instrument dictated by the "dissolved" Communist Party, but the very fate of the whole country may well depend...
...Your articles answering and repudiating Van sittartism and other plans to dismember and humiliate Germany have been splendid...
...I do not doubt the truth of tho atrocity stories about either the Jap*, nese or the Nasie—atrocities above and beyond the innate horror of war...
...Childs than Dr...
...I bate Shintoism as n vile thing as much as does Hunter, just as I hate Fascism...
...They find weak spots and put all their efforts in that direction...
...Any professor who is smart enough to evolve "Gestalt" philosophy, should be smart enough to recognise the beautiful "Gestslt" of Hitlerism and the nature of this struggle...
...Sitting st a desk and merely figuring these things out mathematically, won't do...
...The commies came, one and all, prepared to disrupt, delay, annoy, and disturb as much as they could for as long as they could...
...As for Joachim Joesten's remark that "all those vociferous demonstrations, flaming protests and full-page advertisements in the American press...
...Democratic countries will never be safe from aggression, the danger of new wars, unless all of the Axis lands are integral parts of a peaceful, prosperous, democratic world...
...The second thing I have learned is the trick of getting you not to vote...
...ously close to chauvinism in ths two articles by Edward, Hunter which yon novo published, and1 which I find often...
...Of course there have been Japanese sent to America to acquire a western education in order that they might be more Useful to Japanese imperialism...
...Han mann's beautifully boxed little "lecture" to The New Leader on liberal journalism, etc., I had expected to find in this week's issue a veritable barrage of editorial fury and readers' brimstone directed at these learned gentlemen, and more so against Dr...
...6. It is sheer nonsense to write that Erlich and Alter "fell victims to the harsh discipline of the Bolshevik Party," since neither of them had ever been members of that party and were, therefore, never subject to its discipline...
...I have known quite intimately Japanese born in America, free from these various evil influences, and they are as admirable as are the Chinese or any other people...
...A further point to remember is that the Communists have had more than twenty-five years of political experience to bolster them...
...Hartmann may be "sincere," as Norman Thomas was "sincere," but he is certainly no dope and knows full well the isolationists, appeasers, anti-New Dealers, anti-Semites, anti-laborites and anti-liberals who are his camp followers...
...To the Editor: On the 16th of February, 1944, PM, the New York daily newspaper, published an article in which, the events leading to the tragic execution of Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter by the Soviet Government were presented in a rather distorted manner...
...Hartmann, because he is so much closer to many of us in the field of workers' education...
...3. It is not true that "in August, 1941, they were released at the request of the Polish Government-in-Exile...
...The commies attend meetings at which they can gain admittance by fair means or l'oul, with all the family, friends and relatives they can gather...
...It is, therefore, odd to assume that both of these well-known leaders of the Socialist International were Trotsky's adherents on the sly...
...Childs show such fraternal solicitude and thereby add to the confusion of the nlready thrice confounded...
...The hell, you say, because we all care...
...Today, they are with us...
...And who cares...
...But not a word, not a peep out of anybody...
...And if a professor did go emotionally and politically haywire (lots of them did in Germany and elsewhere—Hitler's retinue is lousy with Ph.D...
...Henryk Erlich, who was editor-in-chief of a Jewish Socialist daily in Warsaw until September, 1939, was condemned by a Russian tribunal in August, 1941, because, among other "crimes," of an article written by the Idle S. Zygielbojm, and published in the same newspaper, which condemned Russia's occupation of the eastern parts of Poland, in collaboration with the Nazis...
...if any harm waa done, those who carried out this political purge are tho guilty parties rather than those who protested against it...
...Maxim Litvinov, Soviet Ambassador in the United States, officially informed us that l>oth men were executed in December, 1941...
...H. "little boxes" for his drops of vitriol without sailing into him right then and there, brother editors ? Dr...
...Less people to "work on," nets quicker profits...
...If you're not one to be ruled' by the "party" discipline and are inclined to keep your appointments, stay away from a Communist on Primary or Election day...
...1. It is not true that "in December, 1942, a Soviet tribunal tried two well-known Jewish-Polish labor leaders, Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, on a charge of undermining the morale of the Red Army...
...Sise up the districts and their inhabitants, and lay out the work in such a manner to net the greatest returns...
...They get up with the sunrise to cast their ballot...
...John L. Child's lame defense of Dr...
...A whole people should not be indicted as bestial or inferior— that is Hitler's racialism in reverse...
...At about 11:30 p. m., after a nasty, delaying meeting of unnecessary pros and cons, the decent, sincere parents got up in disgust and prepared to leave...
...I believe with Hunter that the vast majority of Japanese are infected with the virus of Shintoism, even most of ths liberals...
...Both men were released, along with thousands of other Polish citizens, imprisoned in Russia, on the, basis of the general amnesty provided for in the Polish-Russian treaty...
...Anybody who knows anything, knows that the only "United Front" the commies want is the united front that puts them on top...
...I still like Hiroshige, and Japanese gardens, and suki-yaki...
...Hartmann doing in that mob...
...Their approach is, "Don't you vote, and I won't...
...Yesterday they were against us...
...The truth is that Erlich and Alter were re-arrested and executed in December, 1941, at a time when Polish-Soviet relations were at their best...
...At the November elections, Hillman hopes to work with the Communists to elect the men to office that he wants...
...Only through the efforts of a well-organized group were their plans frustrated and the parents remained to elect into office those who would decide issues on merit and not on party dictates...
...And if The New Leader does rap the knuckles of Dr...
...Where the district is too thickly populated and where there is too diverse an element, they work proportionately less...
...In my experience in the labor movement these many years, there are a few things I have learned about the Communists and their tactics that can be passed on for what they're worth...
...We must come pre-psred to outdistance them or they'll finish us...
...They almost succeeded...
...The records show constant inconstancy and if there should be a change again, they will promptly change their "line...
...Then they hie themselves off to meet you at the appointed hour in sufficient time to keep you from voting...
...Hunter's articles include information that is needed...
...As the records look today, the commies may do as he wishes...
...In districts they ars sure of, they work little or not at all...
...A •MAT JOI From ARTHUR G. McDOWKLL To tho Editor: Ten are doing n great pebeiahiag Job which makes tho world a Utile stare habitable for ma aeraemally each week, and keep it no...
...But these data should be supplemented by a clear distinction between the Japanese people and their government, their religion, and the feudaltcapitalisl impel ialist character of their ruling class...
...And, as the saying goes, do as I say, not as I do...
...Hartmann, the "Peace Now"er, as a man of integrity and great learning, and then reading, the week following, Dr...
...The truth of the matter is that in August, 1941, Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter stood trial and were condemned on charges pertaining to their activities in Poland prior to the outbreak of the war in 1939...
...But the majority of Japanese born in this country are loyal to our institutions and traditions...
...The American Labor Party only seven...
...The "innocents" are inclined to be too gullible and thereby lose the very party for which we all sacrificed so much...
...But they vote...
...Disagrees With Hunter Articles Prom JUL}AN AHHOLO To sfto Editor: TTHERE is an underlying spirit danger...
...No, fellow intellectuals...
...The first "tried and true" method is thst of wearing down the resistance of the "innocents...
...6. Joachim Joesten's conjecture that "the two men engaged in something that could be vaguely described as "Trotskyist agitation" is peculiar, to say the least...
...Many of them are risking their lives for democracy, on the Italian front...
...The road to fascism and defeat is paved with the bones of "sincere" and "learned" Ph.D.'a...
...Hartmann ever so gently (wish you'd swing a little harder, N. L), why give the estimable Dr...
...I remember too well the amount of energy and the faith put into the creation of the ALP to allow the situation as it stsnds today to go unheeded...
...At this criticsl stage of the war the pacifist Hartmanns are Vo...
Vol. 27 • March 1944 • No. 13
