The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-10
PRE-CONVENTION DISCUSSION
Our Work i'm the South


line developed only narrow leadership and
left us IN a grave situation insofar forces 1
were concerned Had we built the Party then,
when the movement was at its height we
would never have the same problem of leader
ship that we have now,
Lack of Continuity in Work.
What the Party Plenum characterized as
"lack of continuity" in our work became ap-
parent Immediately after the trial. From
about dozen N. T. W. U. organizers in Meek
lenburg and CASTOR Counties alone the force
was cut to about eight for four states. Space
in the Party and left wing press was cut
down. This continued. Old forces were with
drawn and no new forces replaced them
with the consequent effect of often seriously
affecting the work. The district without
a Party D. o. for months. q
The Party finally made certain efforts to
solve the problem of forces in the South with
good effect on the work. The economic crisis
immeasurably broadened the basis for work
and was reflected in the great March 9Th dem
onstraton in Charlotte. But on the whole the +
effect of the months-long break in the work,
pulling out of organizers, lack of finances, and
primarily, the failure to build the Party i'll
the period of upward sweep of the movement,
made itself felt. This was depend by the
wave of terror that swept the country around
March and was, of course, further aggravat
ed by the fact that the Party carried on little
mass agitation but confined itself to narrow
organzational work alone. AS a consequence
no mass struggles were initiated or led by US.
In short, it was period of slump.
Dangers in the District'
In the course of the work certain dangers
manifested themselves in the district The
right danger was, of course, the main one. 1t
showed itself, first of ALL in the heritage of
petty-bourgeois membership that was left to
us from the Lovestone days. These elements,
all petty bourgeois mddle-class elements of
foreign birth, did not care to mingle with the
native workers. Negro and white. Having
congenial fear of anything remotely resembling
class conflict these elements quickly fled the
Party when plans were being made for March
6.
But even among the native comrades some
signs of the right danger have shown them
selves and typically enough, not among the
lowest paid workers. White chauvinism is the
greatest form of the right danger in the
South 1t manifests itself in a number of
ways in the district First, of course, in the
classic excuse that "Im not bit prejudiced
but the other white fellows are, so that's why
the Party ought to go slow on the Negro
question:. linen, OF course, Is IHe WOlSe IorHi
of acceptance of the line in Negro work in
words and the ignoring of it-actualy the
sabotagng of tin deed 'Sectionalism is an
other form in which the right danger mani
tests ITSELF especially the 81 know my Dixie"
tendencies, which conceal, in the profession of
knowledge of local conditions, the desire to
dilute the program of the Party or to obscure
it entirely with the excuse that chat won't
go in the South" This was mos tcrassly ex-
pressed by a number of comrades in the q,
Greenville, S. c., unit of the Party who did
not want the Party to go on the ballot in
South Carolina, saying that the workers of :
South Carolina were not ready for it! Possibly
they would have the Party call on the South
Carolina workers to vote for friends of labor
on the democratic ticket!
Question of Underground Apparatus.
In connection with the discussion on the work
in the South, Comrade Graham in an article
in the Daily Worker states that "the Bureau
of District 16 committed an opportunist mis-
take when it instructed the units to build
underground apparatus" Although it is not
vital to the discussion, Comrade Graham
might be reminded that if this was an error,
it was a left sectarian error rather than
right error. Only a Slight distinction, but
people who presume to state what is MARKHAM"
teal terms. Comrade Khitarov, writing in the
current issue of international of Youth"
states:
THE right wingers for legality at
any cost, they ready TO do anything to
please the ruling classes in order to retain
their legality The lefts on the contrary, ,
true to their general sectaran outlook. want
quickly and as thoroughly as possible to
go underground"
The left danger, due to the fact that the
small Party in the South does not suffer from
the immigrationst sectarianism that charac-
terzes our Party as whole has not the same
roots as elsewhere. Nevertheless it has GER
tain roots in the South Mainly, the cleft"
danger comes from the peculiar individualist
traditions that many of our Party members
have brought with them from the mountain
side, from which the southern proletarat as a
whole is comparatively newly sprung. Certain
tendencies to work individually, certain edo
or die ndividualist tendencies. nourished by
moods of pessmism, occasionally arise. But
these not particularly zeric=s. Thc.- cre
truly the infantile sicknesses of Party that
is growing out of new proetariat. ,
Perspective in the South.
The Party in the South is faced with ire
mendous tasks and tremendous possibilities.
The perspective is for wider and more bitter
class struggles. The workers will find ranged
against them the Bosses the government and
the A. F. of l.. Struggles will undoubtedly
sometimes take on the sharpest forms.