Why It Is Difficult for a Communist To Be a Cooperator
Tichenor, George H.
Why It Is Difficult for a Communist To Be a Cooperator By George H. Tichenor Editor, The Cooperator; Member of the Executive Committee, Liberal Party. The hypnotic eye of Candidate Mareantonio, •...
...It is difficult for a Communist to be a Cooperator, because it requires that he reach and abide by democratic decisions and work for the common good of society and not one partisan clique...
...To their thinking, Cooperators are lamentably undisciplined...
...Rupture* and slander played their part in failure...
...Exposed to sunlight snd sir, the Commie organisation withered away while CCW continued to grow, today one of the largest regional Cooperativea with an annual volume of $4,000,000...
...For two years the Commies battled to control the board ef directors...
...Nobody's a Commie—Stalin ia only a fellow-traveler, and those Commies that don't eiist have only the greatest good-will toward Cooperatives...
...Labor unione and Cooperatives should ponder this picture presented in a sympathetic study by Albert Rhys Williama of "The Russians": "Though diatinct from the government, the Communists largely control it...
...We seek to bring out the freest expreaaion of each personality, in the tradition of the Danish folk schools "to teach each individual to become reconciled to his own judgment" The rainbow flag of our international movement presages a brighter day after the storm, a brotherhood of man, by deeds and dealings, not force of arms, an era when the world shall be for the first time at the mercy of the merciful...
...The 781 cooporationa had a total net profit for 1*43 after taxes of 81,003,500,000...
...The findings and recommendations of our public affaira committees are related strictly to issues affecting consumers in the spheres in which our businesses function...
...They control it much more than the Democrats do the American government or the Conservatives the British...
...So far as I know, of the 2»» societies which sre members of the Eastern Cooperative League there are none controlled by Communist...
...He uses it to further the interest* of Russia, even if opposed to the interests of the United States...
...Thii new one is an exception, for it hat a good chuckle, whether planned or not...
...The effect was salutary...
...There were throe Commie director* on a board of eleven of the Central Cooperative Wholesale...
...The basiaeee recovered wsnly, like a man from the plagae, aad never regained ita eaap...
...Their strategy waa directed by Otto Kuusinen, who had spent much of hie life in Moscow snd ten years later was to be made head of a puppet government in Finland following the Russian invasion before the present war...
...They injected more leaven than the business could stand and we derived not a single benefit from our investment...
...As a compact, disciplined body with all ita parte moving into action as a single unit, presenting a solid front on every issue, it carries decisive weight in every council...
...The Russian people sre wonderful...
...AU contemporary religion* and churches, oil and every kind of religion* organization, Marxism has alway* viewed a* in*trum*nt* of bourgeois reaction, terving a* a defense of exploitation and the doping of the working elate...
...First the democracy of a Co-op represents to him absolute heresy...
...Likewise tha petroleum industry, which has bad * rise of over 8f per cent in profits after taxes, demands higher prices...
...As the only legal party, the Communists enjoy a complete monopoly in the political field...
...and there are many Cooperators grown careless or forgetful of thesjdamage wrought in Cooperative* in the few instances where Commies have attained power...
...Taxes Have 6oae Up— ¦at Prefift Have Bison UHI Mare . . . . The Office of Price Administration has analyzed financial statements filed by 781 corporations which manufacture or distribute the necessities of life...
...Open discussion and independent thought and action seem puerile to members of that group which secretly plate, acta and votes with tha 1 *k-step precision ef those who taught Hitler's gang all they needed to know of strategy...
...Secondly, the Cooperative principle ef neutrality in race, religion and polities is also dumbfounding...
...Or, to put it more aimply, it is difficult for a "good" Communist to be an honest man...
...Then they withdrew their support in a block...
...I once belonged to a Co-op whose members innocently took up collection* for s s women'* "peace" organisation, whose real nature did not become apparent until it had changed name and policy once too often to be a coincidence...
...Our principle of open membership to all economic and social groups is in shocking contrast to his concept of a one-party system limited to the elite...
...Are we talking about the international friends ef labor or tha present comforters of Montgomsry Ward...
...The Commie* demanded that |K,000 be donated by the struggling wholesale to a Communist front organisation, the transaction to be hidden in devious ways in the accounting...
...The Commie is unhappy and restless if be cannot convert the union or the Co-op into another robot roost...
...They are accustomed in their captured labor unions to throw blocks of votes, like "unanimous" resolutions, this way and that at the direction of the -cell leaders who, in turn, respond to the strings from above...
...The most spectacular battle occurred in 1928 in Superior, Wisconsin...
...Are we talking about a disciple of I-enin who had a certain amount of violent honesty in working for an international proletarian revolution, or a disciple of the nationalistic and saturnine Stalin whom Lenin did not trust...
...The Commies threatened and did persuade ten societies to withdraw from CCW and set up a rival "Cooperative" wholessle...
...The OPA report shows that profit* on food,, clothing, and other necessities are high "beyond the dreams of avarice," and that every penny of taxes paid by these big firms are passed on to the consumer...
...Failing, they attacked the character ef the manager and slaadered him ia the neighborhood...
...We are internationalists, liberals, and resenters of any authoritarian group...
...It was given to the Senate Banking and Currency Committee to prove that price control aids business...
...It is consistent that we urged our members to bring pressure on their Congressmen and Senators for food rationing, that we favor grade labeling, that we defend the patronsge ssvings return against attacks in legislatures...
...The Commie, by contrast, must be "agin" somebody (varying with whatever the line happens to be...
...Their taxes have risen—but their.net profits have gone, up nearly 60 per cent i, „' r?6Vmany workers, after paying taxes, erijoyed wag* increases anything like that...
...Are we talking about tha anti-imperialists or the Big Power carteleers who would divide the world like an orange?** • * • ThE mistake is to expect to find a "principle" In Communist policy...
...Upon its members in the** organization*, using 'their influence and all their art* of persuasion,' the Party dependa for carrying out its policies...
...Almost automatically the party decision ef today becomes the Soviet law of tomorrow...
...The Party openly admits,' says Stalin, 'that it guides and gives general direction to the government.' This is putting it modestly...
...They represent only the different choices of an engineering approach...
...because many prospective members of Cooperatives are tinctured with suspicion that there ia something Communistic about us...
...The Cooperative expresses the sentiments of a community...
...When he speaks of shsring, he is thinking of his own gang, and his heartiness has an iron clank about it...
...Comrade Stalin, having become General .Secretary, hat concentrated an enot motto power in hie hand*, and 1 am not ear* that ho always 1cnow* how to use that power with sufficient caution...
...Bori* Souvarine's *Stalin," page 306...
...Cooperators will not endorse any party as such...
...We find it equally repulsive to be ruled by the elite of either Moat or brawn...
...Tho annual report* of the American Civil Liberties Union are rarely relieved by humorous atidee...
...To guide oneself by the pole star of an ideal and be willing to suffer the consequences is to them the height of bourgeois idiocy...
...In determining the difficulties which stand between a Commie and his loyalty to a Cooperative, we must try to determine what a Commie stands for...
...He is moved not so much by love for some as hatred for others...
...The other members of the board fought them down...
...A "good" Communist joins a Cooperative or labor union to make it an instrument of the Party...
...The hypnotic eye of Candidate Mareantonio, • taring from a pester, tent shivers through all my feathers, reminding me that 1 km overdue with "Why It It Difficult for a Communitt to Be a Co-operator...
...Ijick of information usually is responsible for Co ops being played for sucker...
...Lenin on Religion...
...Bat there are on the lend-¦rape one or two ehella, buined and gatted, as object lessons to those who wait toe long and havoao face the alternatives to be rated or rained...
...cited by N. T. Timathtff, "Religion tn Soviet Russia,'' page 13...
...But you will nowhere find the movement bargaining with or backing a particular party candidate...
...This report has been withheld from the public...
...Oh, and at the moment they are intensely ehurchly (which ought to make Marx and Lenin spin in their graves).*** How a Communist can aver be religious in the usually accepted senss, requiree the subtlest casuistry (of which they are capable), because to a materialist, only facts, figures, solid matter count, and the means by which these ende are attained cannot be called scrupulous or unscrupulous...
...Tj IT is obvious that with such a frame df mind, a "good" Commie joining a Cooperative does so with the sheerest hypocrisy...
...And at home (Russia) loyalty is not first to the Ruttian people, but to the inner circle of the Party...
...There ia no secret about this...
...Among the development* commended by the ACLV wae tha fact that no proceeding* were brought against Communist*, "who now conform to all leading majority dogma...
...There ie a large society in the East which still deee business...
...The third difference in attitude is not embodied in any Co-op principle but is implicit in the "tone" of all the principles...
...That waa eight years ago...
...Control is achieved, not by arbitrary imposition of of the Party's will, but by using its tremendous influence and prestige...
...We are for the people everywhere...
...Of course, there is no connection between "Vito the Vital" and the Commies...
...The Commies will swap, make deals, and endorse the most opportune candidate with cynical indifference...
...Members of the Party, pledged to carrying out its directives, are commissar* in the cabinet, make up three-fourths of the Supreme Soviet, head moat of the trusts and universities, staff the high commands of the Red Army...
...In political action, Co-op and Communist differences are most sharply contrasted...
...Almost exactly aa the Five-Year Plans are outlined by the Party, they are adopted by the government...
...From 1936 to 1939 the same Arms had profits after taxes of (680,217,000...
...Communist policy begins to have logic when you see it as a continuous course of opportunism operating to t h« interests ef a small group in one country...
...Nevertheless— The issue is timely, because of a carefully nurtured misconception that to attack a dictatorial party representing less than two and a half per cent of their papulation ia to be unfriendly to the Russian people...
...If they do not, it straightway discredits, demotes, or deposes them...
...We wee suckers for anything with the name "Cooperative," and invested seventy-five dollars (without the advice of the Eastern Cooperative League) in a Co-op of another city which wa later found to be crawling with comrades...
...Ita members have a sense of togetherness, full of good nature and mutual trust...
...But members could not park their politics outside the door...
...Are wetalking about those eloquent whooper-downers who made their bed with the pacifists, hampered this country's arming and tried to prevent our shipping arms to Britain when this was an "imperialistic war* before Germany attacked Russia...
...Cooperstors like the Russisn people (therefore, Cooperators don't like Commies...
...Here we are confronted with so many bends in the snake, it is difficult to know where to lay a hand...
...There waa a Cooperative society in Knickerbocker Village, New York, with enough problems of an ordinary nature to engross the bast thinking of all members...
...Or the whooper uppers now engaged in a frenzy of buying war bonds...
...They likewise hold most of the key positions in the labor unions, Cooperatives, and prat...
...The cotton textile industry showed almost a three-, fold increase of net profits after taxes—the big boys who are now demanding passage of the Bank head amendment to give them still higher profits, and who have sabotaged production of working clothes...
...It is quite true that the Commies have boon consistent fighters for Negroes' rights, but this was all to their political and to the advantage of their treaaury...
Vol. 27 • August 1944 • No. 34
