The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-06

The Daily worker (NeW YORK; reaily dld
carry out the campaign eXcellently. For sew
eral weeks the front page was entirely devoted
to this campaign with excellently arranged
material. The paper used impassioned and
moving language. Good impressionable illus
trations were printed every day and the
churches ant-Sovet campaign was handled
in a more outstanding manner than in the
European Communist press. The paper pub
lished very striking material on the COM
bned activity of the big trusts and the church
es. 1t also paid the necessary attention to
propaganda probems-the world economic
crisis and the question of religion. Big fight
ing slogans were at the top of every page. In
general it may be said that while ignoring
all other questions (including International
Women's Day, March Sth) the paper concen-
trated undivided attention March 9Th. One
must admit that whereas, on the one hand,
the excellent conducting of the American Daily
Worker campaign is a reflection OF the inten-
sity of the unemployed movement, on the other
hand, the paper itself, by it's striking agita-
tion greatly furthered the tremendous success
of March 9th in the U.SA. and provided an
example worthy of imitation by the European
Communist press.
1t must be recorded that on March and
the Communist press brought the campaign to
elimination point, but considerably waned in
campaign, with the exception of the New York
Daily Worker. Close examination of the issues
for March and March reveal that the press
saw the significance of March mainly in the
actual fact of demonstrations and not in the
fighting program which laid it's own special
imprint on these demonstrations. In this res
pect the Rote Fahne headings typical. On
March 5 heading ram "The streets must be
free" and on March 6: "The world offensive
n,.M
which otherwise was excellently made up, there
was not even any boldly printed treatment of
the March slogans, although. we assume there
would be bigger print of the Rote Fahne
that day. The same can be said of the main
March 6 slogan in lHumanite: "There will be
demonstrations in the factories and streets"
Demonstrations, yes-but under what banner?
1t was essential to indicate this. This once
again reflects the one-sided appreciation of
the significance and tasks of March by the
Communist newspapers.
In regard to utilization of the experiences
of the campaign, the main defect is the abso-
lutte absence in the press of any critical survey
of the campaign. In our view, besides noting
the achievements of the March campaign,
which is further step forward compared
with August 1, the defects of the campaign
should also have been quite mpartially sub
mtted to self-criticism.
In making use of the March campaign,
Rote Fahne restricts itself exclusively to de-
scribing the significance of the sanguinary
social-fascst terror. On the other hand, the
campaign was wound up prematurely, and
not succeeded by transition into the prepa-
ratory campaign for May First.
LHumanite, while also emitting all criticism
Of the weak points of the campaign, emphas-
lied in excellent leading articles after March
q Al H.
international significance of the campaign.
The British Daily Worker after March
displayed an inadequate understanding of the
new factors in the situation in England, as
sgnalized by March 6-the significance of
socal-fascist terror in relation to the demon
strators. The role of the Party in utilizing the
experiences of the campaign was not clearly
brought out. Things were improved by the
linking up of the campaign with subsequent
campaigns (hunger march and First of May).
In utilizing the March experience, the esti-
nation of the various demonstrations by the
press also deserves attention. Rote Fahne i'm
mediately understood the great Importance of
the powerful demonstrations in America, and,
except for certain exaggerations, gave a COR
rect appreciation of their significance.
LHumante and Daily Worker (London),
however, although on that occasion we'll sup
piled with information at first absolutely failed
to realize the Importance of the New York
demonstration on March 6. The Daily Worker
devoted a small part, to the New York DEM
onstration. These errors were only rectifed
afterwards
In summing up we must say that the util-
ization of the March 6 experiences by the en-
tire Communist press was much feebler than
the preparation for this campaign This defect
deserves special attention as it reflects one of
the typical weaknesses of our press. What
the last Plenum of the presdium of the ECCI
said about the sections in general, is equally
correct when applied to the Communist press:
in all the work undertaken agitation and pro-
paganda outweghs the organization of the
struggle. This by no means signifies that in
agitation and particularly in propaganda, spe-
cial efforts not required. However, the
process Of the March campaign undoubtedly
has shown that the role of the Bolshevst press
as an organizing factor in the movement must |
certainly be strengthened.
We have left untouched here whole number
of typical weaknesses and burning, unsolved
problems of the Communist Party press, since
they can only be elucdated by detailed
analysis of the general condition of our press
This is to be the subject of a special article.