The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-27
By HARRISON GEORGE.

WHEN the congress of the trade
unions of the Pacific opens at
Vladivostock on August Is, more
than two years will have gone by
since the Pan-Pacific Trade Union
Secretariat was established at Han
kow, China, in May, 1927. A re-
view of these two years reveals. big
events which, however, only presage
greater ones ahead.
On May 20, 1927, when the Han
kow Conference opened, despite all
the obstacles placed in it's way by
the imperialists, Hankow was the
center, isolated by blockade from
without, and wavering from COM
promise within, of the Chinese re-
volution. Behind the screen of revo-
lutonary phrases, the cleft" Kou-
mintang controlling Hankow (the
Wuhan government, was preparing
to throw off the mask and unite
with the imperialist-backed counter
revolution.
Two years-and the butchery still
continues; a continuous and system
attic murder of the most splendid
fighters that the working class has
ever produced in any land or time.
The executioners admit as many as
$4,000 have been slaughtered. The
fierce resistance of the masses took
the shape of several regional re-
volts, the most important of which
was the Canton rising of Deem
Der, 1927. By the most barbarous
terror the imperiaEsts and their ma
tive militarist lackeys regained in
large measure their old positions
and the labor movement was driven
underground.
But the very putridity and disin-
tegration of the Kuomintang (the
Chinese bourgeoisie) reflecting it's
connections with Imperialism and
feudalism, was exposed the minute
the revolutionary mass movement
was crushed. The Kuomintang mill
tarists, each reflecting his alliance
or cross-alliance with one or more
of the imperalist powers, fell out
among themselves and into inter
minable civil wars over the spoils,
wheedling subsidies from the i'm
perialists, plundering the populace,
fattening on graft; as vicious band
of cuthroats as ever was swept into
the garbage can of history. And this
is the Marking government" This
is national unity la Chang Kai
Shek, the hero of the Chinese bour-
geoisie!
The Chinese working class has
passed, is passing, the bitter test of
blood and fire. Yet, for all the terri
BILE and wanton masascres and the
deep defeat that shattered the mass
organizations, the revolutionary
movement has never died. 1t has
broken through the crust of terror
repeatedly and in all sections. Guided
by the P. P. T. U. S. against both
cleft" and fright" errors, the ALL
China Labor Federation is rallying
all class conscious elements of the
proletariat, now compelled to strug-
gle by conditions worse even than
before 1925 when the upsurge of re-
volt began.
The Storm in Japan.
The Japanese capitalists have
taken a page, though it be but a
bad lesson, from China's terror. In
the last two years, labor organiza
tions have been broken up and many
leaders murdered. The Left Wing
center, the Hyogikai, was dissolved.
There are now 63S revolutionary
workers in prison, the government
admits that figure, though there are
more. Most were arrested in March
and April, 1928; 218 have been tried
and sentenced to long terms. In
Toxic, $50 have been in prison for
a year and a half without even a
hearing-not even their names are
revealed.
But torture, prison and death all
fail to crush the rising mass move
ment outside the prisons; and even
within these prisons the stalwart
fighters defy the despotism of the
emperor, who claims he is "descen-
dant of the sum-" and teach revolt
from the very prison windows to
crowds of workers gathered outside
in protest against the feudal-im-
perialist rulers.
Strike follows strike, and it can
not be otherwise, as Japan's i'm
perialist economy of intensified
wage slavery at home and plumber
abroad cannot solve, but rather is
the cause of the worsening condi-
tions of the masses. The leaders of
the fright reformist unions, led by
Suzuki, openly unite with the gov
eminent and police. And these
rights" have been protested by the
so-oallcd "centrist" trade union
leaders, actually left" reformists.