Labor in Politics: 1944 Model
An Editorial— Labor in Politics: 1944 Model WITHIN three abort month, the Initials PAC hare become a symbol about which awirla the strategic flffht ef the current campaign. The ClO's Political...
...Philip Murray, CIO president, and Robert J. Watt, AFL, joined in an urgent appeal for aid for the be-leagured Poles...
...Neither can liberal Republicans remain long in a party whose leaderahlp represents old-f sshioned right-wing react ion...
...The fact is that Moscow appealed by radio IS times between June 2 and July 30 to the Poles to revolt (See The New Leader for April 19 and 26...
...Poland Fights on Six Fronts . By Linton M. Oak Five years ago, On September 1, 1989, the Nasi* attacked Poland and the war was on...
...Such articles as that of Louis Waldman ir the Saturday Evening Poet do not help to clarify the situation...
...The Poles have resisted heroically ever since—on six fronts...
...When Mr...
...should be involved in the agreement, so that it will not be either unilateral- or bilateral, and so that Poland's independence will be guaranteed by the United Nations, The border snd the constitutional questions would be left for postwar negotiation...
...Included is Gen...
...It Is only men who object to any social change, to any radical Improvement, who are alarmed...
...He does hisseolf and the progressive labor movement aa injustice wnen he sasbp to strengthen his case by Identifying the -militoah Socialists" of It** aad their paeuaVLeninist progi.*, with Urn men aad ideas ol th* Clu today...
...The Polish Underground approved Mikolajcsyk'i proposal* for compromise with Moscow, but sdded th* provision thst Britain and the U.S.A...
...The Democratic Party today Is a hugs tent enclosing, the southern Democratic machines and ths urban machines and the labor vote...
...The Germane retaliate against the civilian population in areas they control, deporting over 150,000 to a wholesale slaughter camp at Pruaskow — mostly women, children, snd old men...
...Poland fights in the open and fights in the underground...
...PAC is not Communist No one esn pretend that the top leadership of CIO is Communist, and PAC takes its orders from the CIO Executive Board...
...Poliah papers on ths various battle-fronts are filled with bitterness and anxiety...
...Poland has vindicated its right to full and independent existence among the nations of the world...
...PAC cannot capture the Democratic Party...
...By coming powerfully upon the political field today against the Big Business lobby and the farm bloc, labor is taking a step right in line with our whole history...
...The Constitution of 1935 would b* renounced if thia offer were accepted by the Polish Government in Ezile...
...The Bryan campaigns represented the agrarian and debt-ridden West aa against the industrialized and capitalist East...
...The Committee for National Liberation would be regarded s» a fifth party, to be represented in the future government slong with ths four parties already represented...
...The Jackson campaigns were based on the issue of the Bank of the United States and the monopolistic controls exercised by Nicholas Biddle and a coterie of bankers...
...A CBS broacast from Moscow reported that the Warsaw insurrection has been practically crushed...
...It* retreat from politics, abrlsajaty, weald only leave Ra economic ¦aak entirely saprotected...
...The ClO's Political Action Committee aa been depicted aa an attempt to form a Labor Party la America (World-Telegram), an effort to capture the Democratic Party (Saturday Evening Pott), a secret Communist front (Hearst papers), the New Deal in a new garb (New York Times...
...None at these definitions is accurate...
...e 1 e • The Jewish Morning Journal prints a dispatch from Geneva reporting that the leaden of the Socialist Bund and of the Underground resistance were arrested by the GPU when the Red Army "liberated" LuUin...
...One* of the tragedies of the liberation of Poland from the Nazis is that thousands of those who have fought so long and so bravely against fascist totalitarianism—and previously against Pilsudski snd Beck—will suffer the fate of Erlich and Alter, the (ate of all those who within Russia opposed or criticise* Stalin...
...Such is Stalin's "higher form of democracy...
...The hostile press haa painted a huge and distorted caricature...
...Old forces sr* slipping their moorings aad seeking new docks...
...2—On the eastern front, where Polish units, formed in the U.s.s-R-, now fight side by side with the Red Army...
...At fact value, It appears to be a genuine effort to reseh ft settlement—but it may be a diplomatic trick...
...two Polish colonels told Henry Shapiro that a third of the Polish capital is destroyed and that 200,000 lives were "needlessly sacrificed by the bungling" of their leaders...
...This is not the first such report from Under ground Poland...
...Its strength at the Democratic convention was limited to parts of four state delegations, Michigan, Minnesota, California snd Pennsylvania...
...force in American life...
...The theory of ths "popular frost," upon which it operates will, we feel, confuse the labor movement ami causa damage to Rs cause, Bat thia agmaaltsjisei, with att its blunders, appears to us to be the sposrheed of a movement to realign the political foroes of this country...
...Edward osubka-morawski, chairman of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, organized in Moseow and now at Lublin, proposed to the Polish Government-in-Exile that the dispute be settled by a Joint provisional government: Mfkolajczky, Peasant Party leader, would be Premier, and three others from the Polish Government-in-Exile would be accepted in the Cabinet—Prof...
...Throughout all our history the underlying realities of politics hsve been economic issues...
...A possible compromise that has been discussed, unofficially by Polish* loaders is that each of the two groups should hsve four members in th* provisional government, and that ths other eight should b* selected by th* Polish Underground itself...
...Let us take both things in order, the living reslity of PAC and the nature of labor political action...
...S—On the Itslian front, where the Polish Second Corps, including smong their ranks veterans of Tobruk and reorganised after their heavy looses suffered in the capture of Monte Cassino, recently succeeded in taking Ancona and Monte Vechio...
...But we cannot remain silent while a distorted image of this organisation is used as a weapon against the idea of labor political action in thia country...
...Polsnd still fights, on land and sea and in the air...
...6—In the air, where the Polish Air Force, schooled in the Battle of Britain, hss since been sctive in sll the theatres of war in Europe...
...but neither geography nor history nor humanity dictates that Poles must be subservient to a totalitarian dictator...
...Ciechanowski stated that the Nasis seek to total extermination of the Warsaw patriots, snd even of the entire Wsrssw population...
...What is really being raised is a class issue...
...Labor today has an essential intereat in politics...
...Such is Communist "unity...
...It is Actually an attempt to drive labor out o* polities...
...These officers claimed to have "escaped" from Warsaw...
...Te deny this would be to wesken it ss sn institutions...
...Hitler wrote in Afcin Kampf that propagandists are most effective when they make their lies big—the bigger the better...
...The Civil War was fought on sec-tionsl lines which reflected economic issues...
...The Communists are in it because they are in certain CIO unions...
...The Poles are pro-Russian, but adamantly anti-Communist Geography dictates that Poland must maintain friendly relations,with Russia and Czechoslovakia...
...Certain statements about the money thst was to be spent plsyed straight into the handa of the enemy...
...Labor eaa retain aad increase Ms economic strength only through recognition aad aae aad extension of each rights as it enjoys under the Wagner Act aad the NLRB...
...Fki.IKS GROSS, Polish Socialist leader snd editor of New Europe, points out in the N. Y. Times the irony of the fact that Rumania is now in s better position internstionnlly than is Poland, though one has aided Hitler and the other has fought faithfully for th* United Nation...
...Being In, they naturally utilise their opportunities for their own partisan purposes...
...Poles fear they will lose independence under the Anglo-American policy of sppeasement of Stalin...
...PAC leaders have exposed themselves to charges of arrogance...
...The final proof of a nation's integrity, of the fact that it is indeed a nation, is the undying refusal of its people to submit before the oppressor, even against the most formidable odds and in the face of the most cruel persecution...
...Robert M. Maclver, chairman of th* American Friends of Polish Democracy, haa issued this survey of the battlefronta on which the Poles sre today fighting: "1—In Warssw, where the popular uprising, now engaging major forces of the enemy, marks the end of s five-year struggle waged by the Polish Underground againat German occupation...
...This ia a version of the old sdsge thst it you throw enough mud some of it will stick...
...Waldman seeks to draw the line between the "legitimate" interests of labor—that is, wage* and hours—aad the "illegitimate"—which is polities—then hs implies that he opposes the whole role of labor in madara industrial ooelety...
...The original coalition around President Roosevelt, labor, small businessmen and farmers, represented an . acute division between the large masses of "small" people and Big Business...
...And it is being decorated with all the fearsome sttributes of s midsummer sea-serpent Actuslly ss organized labor enters politics, it is taking political argument and political conflict back to realities...
...The CIO happens to be the most srticulste section of the labor vote, but it ia more than likely that the solid weight of the AFL will add up to more...
...Osubka-Morawski's proposal may be a part of such a compromise...
...Even if the Moscow radio had not appealed 13 times in July for an uprising, this would be obviously absurd —the Socialists and trade union leaders would be utterly insane to sacrifice 200,000 followers and thus weaken their own position vis-a-vics the Moscow-led forces...
...The Democratic Party cannot remain long th* fantastic conglomeration which it is...
...Whenever living forces have fought it out, whenever important changes have been made, this sort of thing has happened...
...Many Communists and fellow-travelers play a prominent part in the regional organisations...
...With the blood they have shed on all the battle-fronts of this war, in every place wbere the fight for freedom Is being wsged, the Poles, our Allies, hsve proved their devotion to our common csuse...
...It would be ridiculous to ssy that Henry Wallace's strength wss a meaaure of PAC's sUture...
...Til E technique of the big lie has been used on a grand scale by the Communists, fellow-travelers, and stooges in a persistent and successful effort to obscure the facts and create a false impression about the Warsaw insurrection, to justify this shameful betrayal...
...The New Leader does not ase eye to eye with l>AC on many tactical points...
...The New Leader has its differences with* PAC, and these will be elaborated in subsequent issues...
...Karol Poptel, a Catholic leader of the Christian Labor Party and new Minister of State, and a member of the Polish Socialist Party te be selected...
...The difference between Jefferson and Hamilton were based on the interests of small agrarians versus merchant-capitalists...
...The aimple notions of face-to face collective bargaining held by Sameel Compere have given way te the ntrsdnrttasa ef the state as a permanent balsace-whoel ia isstas-trial Rfe...
...He added the lie that the supplies dropped by British planes flying 1,750 miles round-trip from Italy reached the Germans...
...What is really behind all of the hullabaloo...
...William Green declares that SO per cent of its vote will go to FDR...
...Trade unionists know their methods well and have proved that they know how to deal with them...
...For back of tko attack* on th* PAC is the fear that labor will become cohesive politically and use it* strength to attain end* dutatsteful to the reactionaries...
...If the PAC were a community of saints, it would be attacked with the same viciousness...
...Stanislaw Grabski, conservative speaker of the National Council...
...We object to PAC's connection with the Communist-dominated ALP in New York state...
...The uprising began on August 1. General Bor snd Ambassador Ciechanowaki in Washington both appealed again for the desperately-needed military aid to the Warsaw anti-Nazis...
...5—On the ssa, where the Polish Nsvy and Merchant Marine, distinguished for the parts they played in the Battle of the Atlantic, the struggle in the Mediterranean snd in convoys to Russia, aided the Allied invasion of Normandy and of southern France...
...Thus Moscow buttresses its lie thst General Bor failed to coordinate the uprising with the Red Army offensive...
...Rola-Zymierski accused the Polish Government in Exile of staging ths uprising for politicsl purposes...
...The fact is thst Genersl Bor and his men received these supplies snd went wild with enthusiastic gratitude, inadequate though the aid was...
...But none of these things furnishes the real animus of the attack...
...4—In Normandy, where the Pojish Armored Division from Scotland, comprising veterans of the French and Norwegian Campaigns of 1940, recently participated in the capture of Fslsise...
...In thia reslignment which is bound to come labor can play an important rol...
...HeAVY fighting continues between the Polish Underground within Warsaw and Jbe German troops, and the Red Army has not msrehed to the sid of the Polish patriots, though it advances swiftly on other sectors...
...Those Poles within Russis and Polish territory controlled by the Red Army, whose political futures depend on Moscow's patronage, have glibly echoed the Soviet lies...
...Rola-Zymierski, commander of the Polish forces attached to the Red Army, who repeated the story told by the officers who "escaped" from Warsaw...
...PAC has consistently rebuffed militant elements in the CIO which hsvs called for independent politicsl action by labor...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 36
