New Britain herald., 1930-03-05
THE NEGLIGIBLE"
COMMUNISTS

HE "NEGLlGlbDE
 COMMUNISTS
 Orders from the Communist party in Moscow, it is stated, have gone forth to make Thursday day for demonstrations the world over. In the United States the day is sup posed to be one to demonstrate against unemployment. The result will be one where a few Communists in every city will be at the head of an army Of unemployed, who, in nine cases out of ten. will not be composed of Communists. They will join in the parades or whatever the demonstrations" happen to be be- cause there is nothing else to do at the moment.
 How negligible" the Communist party in America happens to be can be seen from the statistics relating to the last election. At that time the Workers (Communist) party in the United States polled 4S,o0o votes in the national election. The com parative statistics, obtained from only 33 states, may be compared with 26S,00O votes for the Socialist Party and 21,0o0 votes for the fast vanishing Socialist Labor Party. Twenty-three per cent G1,00o) Of | the Communist votes came from l New York state, which furnished | 40 per cent QO7,OO0) of the Social ist vote. The Communist ticket poll cd 4,9oO votes in Minnesota, 4,7oo in Pennsylvania, 3,700 in Florida, and $500 in Illinois.
 1 It is impossible 10 obtain more reliable figures. A Socialist esti- mate in 1927 put the Communist strength in the United States at only 5000. as compared with S5.000 soon after the Bolshevist revolution in Russia in 1917. In addition, there have been intermittent dissensions within the ranks, and at present the left wing Communist supporters of Trotsky are outside the fold in the United States, as Is the group which holds that conditions in the United States are different than in any other country, rendering it immune from Communistic tenets applied elsewhere.
 The boring from within" policy of. so-called American Communists was pursued for several years with out success The policy was one aim cd at capturing the established American trade unions. The effort was abandoned due to opposition within the trade unions, so thai the main incentive left to the Com. munists, before the present can- paign Of taking advantage of the unemployed situation started, was to form groups in several key in, dustrics. These groups are indus trial' instead of craft unions which is to say membership i: open to all workers in an industry irrespective of the nature of theil jobs, or crafts. The names Of thes, Communistic industrial unions hav' been listed as follows: Nationa Miners Union, the National Textile Workers. the Needle Trades Indus trial Union, the Marine Workers League. The central CommuniS Trade union organization is th' Trade Union Unity League. It is thi latter organization that has beer identified with the Communisti' ballyhoo in New Britain.
 Only ono powerful union in th' United States fell under the swa. Of Communistic control, and the re sulting disastrous strike Is an eNi dence that such control is not de sirable to unions. This union va the International Ladies Carmen Workers Union, affiliated with tn American Federation of Labor. Tn non- Communistic forces gaine, control of the union after the disas trous strike proved to it's member ship that Communistic control va bereft of all the promised advan tagcs. The other powerful union i the so-called needles trades is tn Amalcamuted Clothing Workers. no affiliated with the American Icdcr ation of Labor. In this union, al