The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-05-08
FIGHT EFFORT TO
|. SEIZE MEXICAN
PEASANT ARMS
Communists Say. Keep
the Guns

NClS pA LoOAASA III SAN
salary of the only Communist deputy
to the Federal Parliament, Herman
Laborde, was stopped pending the
attempt CT his expulsion from the
chamber under the pretext of having
supported the recent military revolt,
though the Communist Party fought
against the revolution of the gen.
erals, arm in hand; and now the
treasurer of the National Peasant
League, j. Guadalupe Rodriguez, has
been arrested under accusation of
robbery and banditry. In Jalisco, the
local political chiefs, accompanied by
armed guards, penetrated into fac
tory during working hours and took
away and imprisoned several work
ers under the accusation of plot
ting" against the local government
and of supporting the new UNITED
Trade Union Federation" (Con-
fereracion Sindical Unitaria de
Mexico) which was, at least the
oretically, favored by Portes Gil in
his fight against the Crom.
Fought Catholics.
The accusation of robbery, in
cendiarism and banditry against
leaders of the National Peasant
League grew out of their support of
the government and their fight
against the catholics. In the course
of the struggle, they requisitioned
mules and foodstuffs and confiscated
some from the defeated "cristeros."
During the fights in which agraris
tas and the army fought together
against the "cristeros," a village
was burned and the army now ac-
cuses the agraristas as incendiaries
and of being responsible for the
burning of the village. In few in
stances the federal troops having in
vited their former comrades in arms,
the agraristas, for a visit to their
barracks, surrounded them and took
away their arms, saddles and equip
ment. They were also identified as
bandits" because they branded their
horses with the sickle and hammer.
Communist Statement.
The appeal of the Communist
Party in the "Machete" says:
"To all peasants of the Republic!
Comrades:
after having liquidated the re-
volt of the generals of the North,
the government tries to disarm the
groups of peasants who took active
part against the generals in revolt
and the clerical reaction. AS on
previous occasions, the masses of the
peasants have only served as cannon
fodder for the bourgeoisie and to
protect a government which is not
theirs.
Policy of OPP 9ssion.
"Calles disarmed the peasants in
1924, after the De la Huerta revolu-
ton, doing the same thing after the
revolt of Gomez and Serrano, and
there is no doubt that today, when
the peasant masses show more than
ever their swing towards the left,
Gales and the government of Portes
Gil try to do the same as in 1924
and 1927. The Communist Party of
Mexico exhorts all the peasants to
refuse absolutely to give up their
arms. The government proclaims
that it has crushed the clerical re-
action, but this is lie. The gov
eminent only crushed a group Of
generals in the service of this reac-
ton. The clerical-landowner reac-
ton is still alive, not only in the
north of the republic, but in all
states, including those of the GEN.
ter and the south. And the reac-
ton will continue as long as there
are in the country large estates and
big landowners. Only the complete
breaking up of the large estates and
the handing over of all the land to
the poems and poor peasants will
be able to prevent the continuous
resurrection Of the clerical reaction.
"The experience of twenty years
Of struggles has taught us that the
bourgeoisie and the leaders Of the
Mexican Electromagnetic do not
wish and are not able to solve the
land problem. They not only do not
want the appropriation of the large
landowners, but, on the contrary,
they desire the strengthening IF the
capitalist elements, both in the city
and on the land. A bourgeoisie,
subject to imperialism, cannot fight
against reaction. The bourgeoisie,
linked to the financial interests of
Wall Street, does not want and can
not allow an earnest and open strug-
gle Of the armed peasant masses
against the large landowners.
Sooner or later the bourgeoisie will
turn the arms, which it uses today
against the generals Of the north,
against the masses of workers and
peasants, in order to destroy the
revolutionary onrush of the working
class.
Not One Rifle"
"For this reason the masses of
workers and peasants must be
armed. The peasants must keep
their arms and equipment and do
everything to arm still better. Only
armed workers and peasants are an
effective guarantee against the per-
secutions and assassinations COM
mitted daily by large landowners
and capitalists. Only the armed