The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-02-02
The Devil Condemns Fire

tasts, carefully safeguarding these same CAPT.
talsts from ln1uring it, so it may be used for
the benefit of the working class.
The l. W. w. not only accepts the definition
of the capitalists as to what sabotage means, but
it accepts also the capitalists moral viewpoint
toward it-since it got its fingers burned dur
ing the last World War. Hence the I. w. w,
which rejects mass action, has had to choose
between sabotage and pessimistic inactivity.
1t leaves each worker to choose, and if he
chooses sabotage he is compelled to act as an
individual member challenging capitalist moral
and legal codes secretly and alone; which is in
effective to produce any social result, to begin
with, and tends to create an anti-social attitude
on the part of the worker engaging in such
action.
And if the worker does not choose such mis-
taken tactic, the I. w. w has nothing much left
for him to choose but miserable fit of pes
simsm. Which explains concisely why those
workers who have not left the l. w. W. and
come over to the Communist movement, are
pitiable examples of the cynical hopelessness
and lack of faith in the working class that is
engendered by petty bourgeois radicansm that
talks bravey of sabotage and violence but which
sinks out of sight in dismay at the first breath
of revolutionary action of the masses.
Another instance of the attempt by, the CAPT
talists to cover up their own crimes by shouting
about Communist sabotage" is seen in the
lying news reports from Cuba, The NJ Y Times
of JAM %, gave dispatch from Havana telling
of raids and arrests at the small town of Bata-
BANJO In part it says:
Large quantities of leaflets were found
attacking the administration and urging the
people to revolt by refusing to pay taxes and
by burning cane plantations and mill proper
ties. The police assert that most of the men
;e@e Is -s~s..
have been undermining the morale of peace
full population devoted strictly to fishing"
What absurdityi The humble fisher-folk de
voted to the ancient trade of fishing, are Sc
duced by Communists, who are, as is invariably
the case in all countries "of foreign origin!
The Communist Party of Cuba certainly is
against the Machado government. But SO are
numerous and powerful Cuban capitalists. The
Communists are calling the masses to action by
strikes and demonstrations the basis of their
simple daily needs for bread and land.
But the Cuban capitalists in opposition to the
Machado regime frustrated in their struggle to
take his place by ridiculous elections" and
close contro, of the army. are resorting to in
dvidualist sabotage, the bombing of buildings
and the burning of sugar cane and sugar mills
because. and this Is the important point, they
afraid to call upon the masses for action, for
fear that these masses, listening more to the
Communists than to these capitalists, would "go
too far" and take the canefieds for the peas
antry and the factories for the workers.
In this individual violence against property
we see the essence of petty bourgeois revolu-
tionism which has nothing absolutely nothing
in common with the Communist Party Yet it
is highly ironcal for the trembling gentlemen
Of Harper's Magazine to moralize about destruc-
ton of property, in society run by capita lists
who are trying to "solve" their insane produc-
ton system by burning up coffee because there
is too much; by reducing wheat acreage"
while millions go without bread, and other luna
tic actions only possible under capitalist class
rule.