The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-11
The Question of Proletarian
Defense
By Fred Ellis

parliaments, town halls, barracks, in order to
exercise revolutionary mass influence on the
soldiers; to the prisons and police stations to
demand the liberation of political prisoners
ana of workers arrested in the course of DEM
onstrations.
The appearance of the demonstrations is
very important. They must have revolution
airy and proletarian aspect, they must be eff
fective. This requirement is met by demon
STATIONS straight from the factories of work.
ers in their working clothes, of cripples and
invaids of the imperialist and civil war, DEM
onstrations of women workers and orphans,
etc.
With the accentuation of the struggle, pro-
letarian defense in the factories has new and
varied tasks to meet. 1t may be observed that
a worker who does not yet dare to fight the
police is ready to fight against the strike
breaker, the spy and the fascist in the factory.
During strike movements proletarian defense
in the factories is absolutely essential If we
consider that the main weight of the whole
proletarian struggle is concentrated in the fac
tories, AMI that even street demonstrations
are more and more taking the factory as their
starting point, it is clear that proletaran de-
tense must be built up on the basis of the
factory.
AS far as the special organizations of work
ers' defense is concerned, they can be developed
gradually from the practical measures of de-
Tense which are taken in the course of the
struggle in different instances and which have
been proved expedient. Only on this basis is
it possible to create living organization of
workers defense which will fulfil its purpose
These defense corps should not be secret
fighting organizations within the Communist
Parties, but united front organs of Commun-
list, non-Party and social democratic workers,
whether they are broad mass organizations or
small groups for special purposes. If possible,
they will be legal, if not, they must be estab-
lishel despite their prohibition, of course on
the basis of the practical requirements of the
revolutionary mass movement.
1t is the armed forces of capitalism, the
army, the police and fascist bodies, against
which the workers have to defend themselves
in the first instance. 1t is these forces which
are used against strikers and demonstrators,
which carry out arrests, confiscate the news
papers and occupy the premises of local work.
ingclass organizations. Consequently the ques-
ton of the workers attitude to these bodies is
one of the most important questions of work.
ers defense.
This attitude cannot be the same to the
different kinds of capitalism's armed forces
While the workers recognize methods of bitter
struggle against openly fascist, bourgeois
military organizations, it would be great
mistake to take up the same attitude to all the
forces, particularly to those which are re-
crutel mainly from proletaran and semi-pro-
letarian elements. This applies particularly to
the army. In regard to the army, the most
suitable tactics, particularly in the present
stage Of the struggle, are those of fraternza-
tion with the object of drawing the soldier
masses over to the side of the revolutionary
working class, or of neutraizing them during
the struggle. With this object in view the
soldiers must be kept informed by widespread
propaganda work, of the workers struggle;
the slogans of the common struggle and the
idea of determination of soldier and worker
must be popularized among the greatest posi-
Bile mass of soldiers. If this determination is
to be carried out in fact active and courageous
preliminary work in this direction must be
carried on among the soldiers.
1t may be objected that determination tactics
are only correct in conscripted armies, but that