The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-09-30


stronger if comrades had not brought
facuonalism based on South Slav diff
Ilerences which never existed into the
Party.
Have We Perspectives.
A few words about The Party's
perspectives:-(I nterruptioh) Weln-
stone says Jugo-Slavia is an Ameri-
can problem. [ hope Comrade Vein
stone will help us even more than he
did in the past to solve this Amerl-
can problem.
! The comrades complain we didn't
deal enough with the Party's per-
spectives. Comrades, l must con-
TESS there were hundred and one
problems, multiplied a few thousand
times, that our report of two hours
did not deal with. enough Our re-
port of two hours was a birds-eye
view OF the Party's progress In the
last two years OF the Party's lmper-
| fections, weaknesses, problems, per-
spectives, and tasks. 1 submit that
this discussion has supplemented and
helped and strengthened the report
of The Polcom. when l say this dis
eussion, I am not referring to the
comrades from any of the former
groupings alone doing it, but the
comrades of the former opposition, at
least as much as the comrades from
the majority of this convention.
You complain about perspectives.
We have said that the outlook for
the economic situation is as follows:
There is no depression Immediately
in sight, though there are signs Of
serious recession. A depression may
develop. 1t would be wrong to say
that a crisis of the kind of 1921 is
already here.
We have said that there are chang
ing class alignments, that there are
forces making for the breakup of all
the reserve armies of American
capitalist reaction. We have said
the industrialization of the South
tends to break up the reserve of the
Negroes for capitalist reaction. This
is an important factor for us in the
consideration of the development of
class forces in this country. We
said that Americas dominant posi-
ton of imperialism cannot be main
tanned as long as that of Britain, be-
cause unlike that of Great Britain
there are other forces challenging its
extension - and the Soviet Union
is in existence. The American labor
aristocracy will not hold it's position
as long as that of England. We have
said the migration of the Negro work
ers from the South to the North is
a force for breaking away from the
bourgeoisie one of the most power
full armies of reaction. The eX-
preparation of the farming masses
takes away a powerful weapon from
the bourgeoisie, because the eXpropri-
ated farmers largely go into the
ranks of the proletariat or become
allies of the proletariat.
You say we have no perspective If
you cannot see these powerful class
forces at work, or if you refuse to
consider them as part of our per-
spectives, if you say this is pessi-
mism, say after the convention, you
will do better because you will know
better.
/ n lew WOIuS dDOuC unity. QOli
propose to deal with unity as sort
of an oath. Too many comrades in
this discussion have made it pract-
ice of going on and saying: "Now I
will say unity and close. This is
what l call words and not deeds.
But we will forget about them. Com
rade Cannon, speaking as one of the
voices from the depths, has made a
special plea for unity. Comrade Can
non has gone into the depths in recent
weeks and has come back, as we all
do, much improved, so l propose to
take his remarks seriously. He has
pointed out number of important
problems in unity, but first let me
deal with some of the other ques-
tons.
HegemOny-What Is It?
l will touch on the question of
hegemony: l thought hegemony was
} dead Comrade Bittelman says it is
correct in general and in the abstract
to speak of hegemony and majority
as two different concepts. It would
by confusing where we have a speci-
fic question, situation in life, to
blur such questions. Therefore let us,
in this specific situation in this con-
vention, deal with hegemony con-
cretely
Comrades, we have the majority of
this convention. We h:ve discussed
the Party problems here to the best
of our abilities, jointly. We don't
think we have evolved any theories
of hegemony. We believe that al
comrades have contributed their
share in the discussion. | don't think
the spirit of this convention has beer
that of hegemony. l don't think the
manner in which we have approached
the problems of this convention has
been such. Comrade Cannon only
picks I'm the threads of the argument
which Comrade Bittelman dropped.
We expect yor. together with us