The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-01-06
UNANIMOUS FOR MINORITY THESIS
The LettIsh Branch, Chicago.
BY r. Zelms, Secretary,

outstanding BCI6OndAAlA6h III Jul POI "
namely, Comrade w. 2. Foster, Of the
majority group, and Comrade G. e.
Ruthenberg, Of the majority group of
the central executive committee be-
fore our branch, on Friday evening,
Dec. ~. with Sc members present.
Foster Draws PessimistIe Picture.
Comrade Foster plunged right into
the farmer-labor party issue and drew
a very pessimistic and defeatist pie
ture of our activities in connection
with the farmer-labor movement in
the past, declaring: 1.-THE federated
farmer-labor party was sucking the
life blood of the Workers Party" and
threw in the deliberately falsifed
figures of Joseph Manley. to say that
it cost the Workers Party fortune
to Organize the many fake farmer
labor parties" as if the comrades who
heard him say that did not know what
the party really did and OF the under
lying motives of doing so during the
farmer-labor party campaign.
Foster maintained that our party
must have "the CUTS to do as the So
socialist labor party and the socialist
party did: to go before the labor
unions and speak of their party" as if
the Lettish comrades, all of whom
were at one time or another members
of the socialist labor party and social
list party, were to draw a moral lesson
from the history of the socialist labor
party and socialist party. On the con-
trary, to many of them, their exper-
fence with the socialist labor party
and the socialist party-the morale of
1.-THE sectarianism, the fear from
the masses of workers, the virgin
purity" of Marxism, the dual union
ism, ETC.. was sufficient proof that
Foster was expounding sectarianism
and not Bolshevik conception of
Communist tactics.
The Other United Fronts
other united front tactics of the
party were enumerated by Foster
with exaggerated emphasis on the
amalgamation movement, the cam
paign for the protection of the foreign
born and similar activities of our
party, while our campaigns in connec-
ton with the farmer-labor movement
came in for ridicule, as if Foster
would have been enthused by the con-
tribution of Comrade Martin Abern
when he tried to make the world
believe what darned fool he was for
doing what ne did.
And what was said in this connec-
ton, the Lettish comrades could not
help think that Comrade Foster pre-
sumed they had been in Latvia, fight
ing the bloodthirsty Latvian govern
ment all this time, away from this
continent and therefore did not know
anything about amalgamation and
other successes" of that kind which
our party experienced while partici-
pating in the everyday struggles of
the workers of this country. Comrade
Foster did not realize that by sneering
at some of our attempts on the politi-
cal field in connection with the farmer
labor policy of our party, and by
exaggerating over and over again our
activities on the industrial field,
particularly the amalgamation move
ment-he led the comrades to suspect
him of syndicalist tendencies, of being
a graduate of a syndicalist school of
thought, but not as a leader of a
growing Communist Party.
The sum total of Comrade Fosters
argument in the discussion before the
Lettish comrades that night was:
Thank God, the farmer-labor move
ment is dead and buried; let it rest in
peace. We must look out for tit
will liquidate our party-the Workers
Party But if it was not for the
poorly lighted hall that night, Comrade
Foster would have seen many of the
Lettish comrades smiling. And why?
Simply because Comrade Foster re-
minded them Of De Leon, once their
idol, who convinced them for a time
that: "The trade unions are no good
they are bankrupt, and, therefore.
leave them alone. (Start your own
industrial unions, etc.," In short,
Comrade Foster presented a narrow,
pessimistic, syndicalist and defeatist
conception of the united front tactics
OF our party in connection with the
farmer-labor party movement.
Ruthenberg Speaks for Minority.
II did not take long for Comrade
Ruthenberg to convince the comrades
that our participation in the farmer
labor united front campaigns, regard
less of the many defects and mistakes,
was tremendous, boost for our party,
the Workers (Communist) Party; that
nothing IN the whole history Of our
party, not any other single factor, has
contributed so much to popularize and
consequently 10 increase the prestige,
influence, and leadership Of our party.
before large masses of the workers
and poor farmers in this country as
our campaign for a mass, class farmer