The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-10
By WILLIAM F. DUNE.

Lne SUNDAY EilSllSn SeCCIOu VI IIIS
Jewish Daily Forward.
Their latest contributions, on Oc
tober 2 and September 25, respec-
lively, are of great value in forming
an estimate of the character Of the
British Labor Party leadership. Es
pecially are they of value in esti-
mating the sincerity with which the
Labor Party leadership opposes the
program of British imperialism.
MACDONALD'S article is a defense
HA of the actions of the recent Edin-
burgh Trade Union Congress in ex-
polling Trades Councils affiliated with
the left wing-the National Minority
Movement-and in severing relations
with the Anglo-Russian Unity Com
mittee.
1t is evident that Macdonald is
iubilant. And in this jubilant and
careless mood he let's several cats out
of the bag. The Trade Union Act,
which outlaws effective activities of
the labor movement, the proposal for
the formation of one union in each
Neutrality-suspicious. upon the correct
solution of which the life of the
British labor movement depends, he
dismisses in a sentence.
TO him the fight on the militant sec
1 ton of the labor movement-the
left wing and the Communist Party,
was all important. 1t is evident
from his article that Macdonald does
not regard the tory Trade Union Act
as wholly bad since it outlaws mass
strikes, political strikes, and other eff
fective weapons which the COmmu-
nists and the left wing have been
urging the labor movement to adopt
as part of it's tactics. Macdonald is
lust as hostile to the militant section
of the labor movement as is Baldwin.
"But the Immediately decisive thing
done in Edinburgh" says Macdonald,
was to cut our trade, union move
ment off from Communism q. .
the Communist has had too much
tolerance in our midst. a.. Now he
is the Minority Movement" now "the
International Political Prisoners Aid
Society,"" now the Hands Off China
Committee" and so on. -.
an all, he has been little better than
lying scoundrel, sustained with
Moscow money and, with slavish abb
jectness, doing Moscow's bidding"
1T will be noted by those who read
1 the Macdonald apology for reac-
ton, that he is much more bitter and
abusive toward the movements men
toned, all of which are a challenge to
British imperialist policy, domestic
and foreign, than he is toward the
tory government, the instrument of
British imperialism.
The Minority Movement, for in
stance has rallied million workers
for struggle against the Trade Union
Act. The International Political
Prisoners Aid Society, (its correct
name, which Macdonald does not
seem to know, or it may be too OBJ
noxious even for him to write, is the
international Class War Prisoners
Aid.") organizes and carried on re-
lief work for the hundreds of work
ers who were jailed by the Baldwin
government during the last two years
for strike and political activity. 1t
was the only mass organization in
Great Britain carrying on this work
"THE Hands Off China" Committee
4 organized huge meetings to pro-
test against the dispatch of gunboats
and troops to suppress the Chinese
liberation movement and against
atrocities like the bombardment of
Marking, etc.
Communists were a small fraction
of the workers supporting these
movements, but since they serve to
embarrass British imperialism they
ink Macdonald very much indeed.
AS for moscow money" Mac
Donald will have hard time con-
vincing the British miners, whom he
betrayed to the Baldwin government,
that the $5,000,000 sent by the Rus
sian unions to buy food and clothing
for themselves and their families dur
ing the strike, was a blow at the
labor movement.
IT is when we turn to Bertrand Rus
sells article that we get correct
slant on MacDonald's statements, that
we are able to see that when he uses
such terms as "the usual swill of
abuse" in describing the letter re-
ceived by the General Council from
the unions of the Soviet Union, he
expresses not only his own attitude,
but that Of the imperialists-one of
whom he is.
QUSSELL writes with especial refer
AZ ence to India and his statements
could very well be the subject of an
other article. But here our purposes
are to show that Russell, whose
knowledge of the British Labor Party,
the labor movement and it's leaders
no one will question, furnishes the
evidence that Macdonald land the
rest of the official British labor
leadership are believers in British
imperialism, are therefore enemies Of