The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-02
PART II.


he bourgeoisie, the Communists, in
The interests of the masses of the
workers and of all the toilers who
bear the brunt of the sacrifice en-
tailed by war, wage a persistent
fight against imperialist war and
strive to prevent imperialist war by
proletarian revolution. They strive
to rally the masses around their
standard in this struggle, and, if
unable to prevent the outbreak of
war, they strive to transform it into
civil war for the overthrow of the
bourgeoisie."
War Thesis of Sixth World Congress.
The first task in the struggle
against the coming war is to tear
Is own the screen. by which the bour-
eoisie conceals from the working
lasses their preparations for war.
n the United States the tasks of the
Communist Party are: to denounce
all preparations by the United States
for war with its most dangerous
rival, Great Britain; to fight against
the predatory raids of American i'm
perialism upon Latin-Ameria; to de-
nounce the open a t t ack S made
against the oppressed masses in the
Philippines, Cuba, Haiti, etc. The
task of the American Communist
Party is to unmask the hypocritical
Kellogg Pact which is itself an in
strument for the struggle of the
United States for world hegemony
and in consequence an instrument
not of peace but of war; to denounce
the hypocritical talk of the Hoovers
and Stimson, - the pause in cruis-
er building. This is nothing but a
cover for the general intensification
of war preparations on every front,
economic, political, theological, finan-
cial, as well as military.
II. A special tasks of the Ameri-
can Communist Party is to make
clear to the working class and the
toiling masses of the United States
the role of the Dollar Government in
the war provocation of the Marking
government as an act encouraged
and supported by the United States
bourgeoisie whether openly for mill
-ary preparations or under the guise
2f Observation-Disclosures propa-
ganda directed toward the mobiliza-
ton of all the machinery for war on
the part of American imperialism.
At the present time it is partic-
ularly necessary also to destroy the
pacifist illusions busily sown by the
reformists amongst the working
masses as to the role played by the
Labor (McDonald) government. The
historic role of the Labor Govern
ment at this moment consists pre-
cisely in the fact that it is able bet
ter to hide the war preparations in
general and against the Soviet Union
in particular, under the guise of la
Dor reformist policy and pacifist
phrases. The proposed visit of the
head of the Labor Government, to
the president of the Wall Street gov
eminent, his determination of
Macdonald and Hoover exposes to
the workers the real class character
of the Labor Government.
IL. The main characteristic of the
tBolshevik position is that our strug-
! gle against war is primarily a rev.
dictionary mass action. "Not sab
otaging war, not individual action,
but mass propaganda leading to the
transformation of the war into civil
war" Ienin.) The Communists re-
pudiate all such means" of combat
ting war as hamper the development
Of revolutionary mass action. Con-
sequently the Communists reject in
dividual actions that have no con-
nection with revolutionary mass ac-
ton, - as for instance petty bour-
geois oppositions to CONSUMPTION, re-
fusal to bear arms, refusal to
shoot" etc. In 1922 Lenin wrote
in the instruction to the delegation
to the Hague Conference, Boycott
of war is stupid phrase. The
Communists must participate in
every reactionary war"
IS. The Communists alsa reject any
frivolous treatment of the question
of war. Lenin also taught us that
eve must tell the masses the real
facts about the profound secrecy in
which the governments make their
plans for war and now impotent the
ordinary labor organizations, even
those that call themselves revolu-
tionary, are in the face of impending
war;" The Communists reject such
slogans as General Strike Against
the Declaration of War;" "Strike of
\ Soldiers" etc. as panacea "to be ap-
J piled regardless of a concrete situa-
ton and divorced from the general
class struggle of the proletariat."
1t would create an illusion to say
to the workers that upon the procla-
matin of a war we shall Immediately
answer Will d SSlSIdl Slllhe. he
Cmmunists must not renounce the
general strike as a weapon in the
struggle against imperialist war, but
as Lenin indicated in the document
already quoted above, ut is impos-
sible to reply to war with gem
eral strike, just as it is impossible
to reply to war with a revolution
in the simple and literal sense of the
word"
Side hv side with othn,. fo,.,,,s of