The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-04-22

prlHclpleu IacLlOIal struggle, WHlCH gradually
infected also many of the Finnish leading conf
rades, hampercd Communist development in the
United States. Factionalism dulled the sense
of Party members who entered the opposing
factions and affected them so deeply as to
make them regard the interests of their re-
spective factions above the interests of the
Party. This prevented the education of the
Party, and especially its cadres in the spirit
OF political principles, in the spirit of honest
proletarian revolutionary principles which alone
irresistably leads to the victory of our cause,
j. e., to the victory of the revolutionary class
struggle, regardless as to personal friendship
or luminosity, needless of the reciprocal in.
trigues, such engaged in by Love-
stone, Pepper, Cannon and others. The fac
tional struggle in general Instructed and ham,
pered the political activity CT the Party menu
bers at the class battlefront, weakened the
Party's work in the attraction of the working
masses in preparation for the approaching
great battles with the bourgeoisie and directly
discredited the Party's authority in the eyes
of the masses. Only the subsequent strict in
reference of the Executive Committee of the
Communist International in the fractional strug-
gle was able to put stop to this state of af-
fairs.
2. The sphere of activity which was quite
successful under the leadership of Finnish
Party members also in the second period of
postwar capitalism, and especially then, was
cooperation. In the central states where Fin
nish immigrants not concentrated many
consumers cooperative stores and even whole
sale establishments of the Central Co-opera-
tive Exchange, were opened by Finnish work
ers which grew and which reached quite an
important position in the general cooperative
movement of the United States. 1t was clear
that many of the Finnish workers were then
greatly interested in the savings on purchas-
ing and in the cooperative stores in general,
more so than in the trade union and political
organizations and in the class struggle, that
1t was their ideal to place cooperative activity
at the forefront of the mentioned forms of the
class struggle, that they wanted to replace
these forms by that activity. But the Finnish
Communists, at whose head stood first Alanne
and later Yurie Halonen, who worked. in the
apparatus of the Central Cooperative, were
most besmirched in right-wing tendencies. To
them the cooperative became almost the sole
deity. Although Halonen started out on his
cooperative mission with cleft" phrases
against the old petty bourgeois anti-political
theories (which were too openly then being
forced on the Finnish workers by the liberal
Communist Allane), Halonen and Company
themselves soon began to champion fully the
opportunlst position of non-politcalism and
became opponents to any forms of genuine
proletarian class struggle.
The leadership of the Communist Party
was so overwhelmed by the Lovestone crisis
tnat 1t noticed too late the depth of the right
deviation of Halonen and the right-wing nest
which had been formed in the Central Coop
eratlve Exchange. Too much time had been
lost which should have been used for intensive
enlightenment work amongst the Finnish work
ers IN order to isolate Halonen and render
nm harmless. Instead of the demand about
Halonen's dismissal coming from the PARTY
center, like bolt from the blue, without
proper preparation, it was necessary long be-
lore that to explain to the PARTY member,
and the sympathizers the depth of difference
IN the principles Of Halonen and real Commu.
nlsm, which is as deep as a chasm.
The beginning of the third period of most
war capitalism in America made it necessary
to effect a new differentiation in the Commr.
INST movement of the United States. AS soon
as the Sixth Congress of the Communist
International recorded the beginning Of . new
period and accordingly adopted the course ~
more relentless class STRUGGLE. the Tro+slv-
ist opportunists in America, Cannon and Sui.
kanen began, like pack of frightened dogs.
to yelp and to run away. The Omen Letter ~
the E. c. c. of the spring of 1929 WAS ~
. .IS Dy Lovestone's croakng. Finally, after
a.. .ae lentn Pienum Of the E. G. G. l., which in
W. "e dearest possible terms pointed the door
~ tne opportunists all over the world, Halonen.
realizing that verification Of his political
balance sheet was at hand, ran away from the
iront OF the workers class struggle,
(To Be Continued.o ~-r- i