The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-01-14
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We Reprint
We Comment
By JORGE

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A reader sends us the following excerpt from
page 357 of 1.-THE Octopus" a novel by Frank
Norris; suggesting that we print it without COM
ment:"
"Ah, yes, it's all very well for your middle class
to preach moderation. could do 1t, too. ycu
could do it. too, if your belly was fed If your
property safe, if your wife had not heen
murdered, if your children were not starving
Easy enough then to preach law-abiding meth
DDS, legal redress and all such rot. But how
about us.:' he Moderated. 49,
"Ah. yes, I'm wild-eyed striker. amt ~ I'm
blood-thirsty anarchist, amt I? Wait till
you've seen your wife brought home to you with
the lace you used to kiss smashed by horses
hooi-killed by the trust, 1t happened to me.
Then talk about moderation And you, Dyke.
blacklisted engineer, discharged employee, ruined
agriculturist, wait till you see your little tad
and your mother turned out of doors when 8,
Behrman forecloses. Wait till you see them get
ting thin and white, and till you hear your little
girl ask you why you all don't eat little more
and that she wants her dinner and you can't
give it to her. sse-
wait till you seat the same time that your
family is dying for lack of bread-a hundred
thousand acres bushels of wheat-grabbed and
gobbled by the railroad trust and then talk of
moderation. That talk is just what the trust
wants to hear. 1t amt frightened Of that
There's thing only it does listen to- one thing
it is frightened of-the people with dynamite In
their lands-six inches of plugged gaspipe. That
talks" sesr
With Frank Norris Characterization ofsmiddle
class gable about moderation there Is little to
quarrel with. The misery that haunts the work
ers is he'll enough to drive any worker to boil
ing anger. But with the conclusion-ah, yes
dear. reader" with that we take exception. And
precisely because Frank Norris only remedy Is
typical middle class radicalsm, is why we print
ed the first part to disagree with the idea that
six inches of gaspipe" with dynamite talks"
the language of the really revolutionary workers.
We see, today, in Cuba, people quite united
in hatred of Machado, the imperialst lackey sit
ting in power. But there workers there who
disagree with the Cuban bourgeoisie who want
Machados place. This bourgeois group Is In
fix. Machado holds the army pretty we'll And
the bourgeois opposition fears to call upon the
masses lest the masses, guided by the Communist
Party will overthrow, not only Machado but
these bourgeoisie also, along with Imperialism
So they resort to individual bonlbings, firing
OF the sugar cane, and so on.
We do not condemn this from any inoralstie
point of view, but from the viewpoint OF really
revolutionary working class policy. The disbelief
in the masses in the case of Frank Norris, Is the
same as the fear of the masses in the case Of the
Cuban bourgeoisie. In both cases, the real motive
force of revolution, the class acting en- masse, q
rejected, and as a substitute, there is proposed
the individual terrorism of heroes
But if we are Marxists and Leninists we surely
realize that the winning OF the masses Tor revo-
luton is the absolute prerequisite without, which
no revolution is possible to carry through to sue
cess. Therefore, if we turn away from the mass
and depend upon individual terror we are not
Marxsts, nor Leninists, nor really revolutionary
workers, but petty-bourgeois radicals, following
a theory of futile middle class anarchism which
gets the working class nowhere