The Basic Principles of the Modern Socialist Movement
Berenberg, David P.
The Basic Principles of the Modern Socialist Movement This is one of a series of articles—six groups of six articles each—to appear in The New Leader in cooperation with the Committee on...
...The Prnger TugeHatt after analyzing the election returns in almost eVery district of Germany, states that no more than one-third of the German workers voted for the Nazi candidates and the other two-thirds turned in "void" ballots...
...There the government says it stands above all classes—and that labor and capital must submit all their disputes to i t That means, in plain English, that the government has become the open agent of capital in crushing labor...
...French Communist Party Looses Battle With Doriot rvORIOT...
...It can only be fought to i t s logical conclusion...
...A Nazi victory in Latvia would mean the return of the land to the German barons...
...As this is being written the General Motors Corporation, Henry Ford and Weir are doing their best to prove that there is a class struggle by refusing to deal with the free unions of their workers, and by insisting on dealing with company unions they own and control...
...Thcpe were elected 79 Socialist deputies, a gain of 10...
...The 3,591 blanks includes the bourgeois voters, who were advised to vote "blank...
...Inquiries should be addressed to the Rand School, 7 East 15th Street, New York, and if possible a few postage stamps should be enclosed, so as partly to pay the cont...
...This has until now been easier in America than in Europe because our country was less thickly populated, and also because the rapid growth of the population created business and professional opportunities...
...President Wilson tried it and met with pitiful failure...
...It was organized last year as a demonstration school where the daily farm life is fitilized as an education experience...
...Just as the country could not e x i s t "half slave and half free," so can there be no stopping place between the wageslavery that exists and the freedom of labor that i s to come...
...Its allies in the Canton government, the Radicals secured 33 seats and the Conservative Catholics 10...
...The Socialist vote now represents 40% of the total instead of the 33"' in the previous election...
...The employer i s the "leader," and the workers the "retainers...
...It seems, however, that the result was even more amazing...
...Socialists were advised to vote fjr Doriot and his ticket...
...The Neuer Vorwdrts of Karlsbad makes the same report...
...Fearing Hitlerism and considering a new war inevitable, the Peasant Party and its leaders in the government and army evidently d e c i d e d that a "totalitarian" "strong" government is in a better position to defend the state than a "weak" democratic, coalition government...
...The workers in Germany are told to rely upon the honor of their leaders...
...Any number of efforts have been made to have capital and labor sit down at a table and to iron out their differences...
...We are j u s t l y proud of the great battle for independence from England, and of the greater fight for the abolition of Negro slavery...
...Party to oppose him before thel Communist workers...
...Heeause theparty expelled him for his loyal cooperation with the Socialists in their struggle against the danger of Fascism, Doriot resign' " from his office of mayor and councilman, c a l l e l new i pular elections, and chalien/ed the Political Bureau rf the Comr unist...
...If in the present struggle in the motor industry one side or the other yields, force will have settled the issue...
...It was stated that a great percentage of the workers defied the government, scratched out' the official candidates and turned in "void" ballots...
...Willow Brook School The Willow Brook Summer School announces the opening of its second season at Stanfordville, N. Y., July 5th...
...We will have such slavery here if we surrender to the illusion that capital and labor can sit down and talk the class struggle out of existence...
...The ver...
...The working class is numerically very small in Latvia...
...that it is a mistake to think that their interests are opposed...
...The workers know that even when times are good, wages are low unless a strong union forces them up...
...Ano her semi-f ' t "patriotic front" succeeded in electing 3 deputies...
...This they could do by going into business for themselves or by entering a profession...
...It cannot be denied...
...The "labor agitator" can succeed in winning a hearing from the workers only when they feel that they are being badly treated...
...The workers know that no "outside agitator" can ever incite any of them to anything, if wages and hours are good...
...Neither side will yield to anything but force...
...r • same "war complex" seems to be the real cause of the sudden flare ti.i of "totalitarian" fascism in Bulgaria...
...The class struggle is reaching a climax, It is fiercer today than ever before...
...It cannot be dodged...
...Inevitable as the class struggle is, there are many among the workers who do not, realize its existence...
...Master" and "slave" would describe the situation better...
...The Peasant Party of Latvia is violently anti-Hitlerite...
...Well-meaning people argue (and people not so well-meaning echo the arguments) that workers and employers have more in common than they imagine...
...Such arguments deceive the middle-class and those workers who think they are members of the middle-class...
...It fears Nazism not less than Stalinism, and on purely economic grounds, too...
...In justic to Comrade Stalin it should be said that he alone cannot be blamed for the t r a g i c event in Riga...
...5. Inevitability rVKRY so often efforts are made to reconcile capital and labor...
...Of the other parlies the Farmers' Party remains the strongest with 101 seats...
...This easy escape into the middle class is gone forever...
...And this a vindication of Doriot and the S a i n t - r e n i s district coram' :e that supports his stand on real proletarian unity...
...Their leaders were arrested a f ew weeks ago and their organization suppressed...
...The whole labor experience of the N R A proves— if it proves nothing else—that capital and labor cannot agree to settle their differences...
...The honor of thieves and a s s a s s i n s !) Such slavery as is the lot of the workers in Germany, in Austria and in Italy must never be our lot...
...We are told on such occasions that when business is good the worker is well-paid...
...And since Hitler's spokesman on foreign affairs, the former Latvian nobleman Rosenberg, is openly planning the annexation of the Baltic republics, the Peasant Party is up in arms against the local Nazis...
...Classes will exist so long as one man may exploit another...
...The Basic Principles of the Modern Socialist Movement This is one of a series of articles—six groups of six articles each—to appear in The New Leader in cooperation with the Committee on Education of the Socialist Party...
...Gone, too, is the easy road to the West...
...Until now it has been possible for some of the workers to evade the consequences of the class struggle for themselves by moving into the class next above, the middle class...
...w w w 79 Socialist Deputies Were Elected in State Elections in Berne 1 * ! IK Cantonal, or state, election p • of May 5 and 6, in Berne, Switzerland, brought the Socialists a brilliant victory...
...President Roosevelt, by surrendering to the motor industry on the company union issue, and Senator Wagner, by altering his bill in such a manner as t o legalize the company union, merely register another failure to compromise the c l a s s struggle...
...And now, if we believe the short cable messages from Riga, it was precisely the Peasant Party that •nade the fascist coup e'tat, arrested all Socialist, liberal and democratic leaders, dissolved their parties, abolished the parliament and is c. 'ablishing a "totalitarian" dictorial . :te...
...w Two Thirds of German Labor Votes Against Hitler A NUMBER of German corre^ * spondents mention the astounding results of the shop elections the Nazi government called last m nth...
...in building a free and democratic country with excellent social and labor legislation, an almost ideal system of protection for national minorities, accompanied by a high degree of national and cultural autonomy...
...Latvia, prior to the war, revolution and national 'independence, consisted, I may say, of two nations—of landless and propertyless Letts and land-owning, rich German barons and nobles...
...The elections were secret, although only a Nazi ticket of shop trustees was permitted...
...The New Leader has enlisted the assistance of the Rand School of Social Science, whose staff have undertaken to help readers who wish to get the utinont value out of the series, by answering questions that may arise in their minds as they read, and directing them to sources of information, advising them an to further study, and so forth...
...The Social Democratic Party is therefore also a small, minority, party—out of 100 deputies only 21 are Socialists —but this small party succeeded in the years past, thanks to the support of .the Peasant Party, in exercising a great and truly revolutionary influence on the young Republic...
...Enlightened workers know that no amount of sweetness and light can bring capital and labor together...
...This is what our capitalists mean when they say, "What we need is a Mussolini...
...In Germany the class struggle is even more onesided...
...Out of 15,738 ballots, 11,949 were for Doriot and his comrades and only 3,501 against, or "blanks...
...Special considerations will be off e r e d to the children of those active in the trade union and labor movements, The summer school will be personally directed by .Nellie M. Seeds, Ph.D., formerly Assistant Director of the Rand School and Director of Manumit School, at Pawling...
...pallia: '.call leader " of the Communist Party in France and Mayor of Saint-Denis, the largest nnd mo ;l industrial suburban city of Paris, won his second round with the ofhV'1 leadership of his party...
...In Italy the struggle between capital and labor i s supposed to have been overcome...
...And exploitation of men will go o n so long as' private property exists...
...That cannot be done...
...It is easy to thrill to the great struggles for freedom in the past...
...This is the "great achievement" of Mussolini, for which our Wall Street barons praise him...
...The class struggle is inevitable so long as c l a s s e s exist...
...same formerly landless farmers that made such a thorough job in liquidating the land-owning barons...
...T'uve other C P . councilmen resigned with Doriot and faced the eleciorat • The campaign was short, ' J t •very dramatic...
...There are no free lands calling to the discontented Eastern worker...
...Included among these enemies are "outside agitators" who incite the honest workers a g a i n s t their true friends, the capitalists...
...There the workers have been delivered, tied hand and foot, to their employers...
...that the true enemy of the worker therefore is anything, or anyone, who hurts business...
...The '•(emocrat- republic took away the land from the German barons and gave it to the Lettish peasants...
...The Communists did not elect a single representative nor did the fascist "national front...
...But we have a still greater struggle ahead of us—the conflict for the abolition of wage slavery...
...Radical Farmers as Fascists P R E S I D E N T KVIESIS of Lat" via, in whose name and under whose leadership the fascist " e v olution" was accomplished, was for years— and still is—the leader of the farmers' party...
...While the door is closing in on the worker, the members of the middle class are being wiped out by department stores and chain stores, by the banks, by hospitals, clinics, bonanza farms and other capitalist deyices., Their struggle to escape from their enemies intensifies the class struggle...
...There are many more who realize it but do not see in what direction it is tending...
Vol. 17 • May 1934 • No. 65
