The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-10-29
THE RECENT ELECTIONS IN
WISCONSIN

lists support than being, according to his cam
paign literature, "a winning personality" "a real
man of the people, good baseball player in his
youth, often tmpreSsing people with his striking
resemblance to Eugene Debs, ETC." In order
to fool the workers, the S. P. had to come out
with its battery of ocial-demagogy, with its
sham criticism of the capitalist system, with its
pet proposals Of naturalization of railroads,
banks etc, all to reform capitalism to prevent
the proletarian dictatorship by laying the
grounds for fascist dictatorship.
While coming out with the usual S. PAIL.
proposals for unemployment relief thru the
6-hour day. 5-day week (stagger SYSTEM and
public works, at the same time they blasted
capitalism a system, speaking Of the danger
of war which can only be avoided thru chang
ing the structure of the social system, thru re-
storing the government to the people -" AS
result Of this social-demagogy, hundreds of
workers and poor formers voted for the S. P.
as a real fighter against capitalism, especially
in places which weren't reached with the mes
sage Of our Party.
Expose Social Demagogy Through concrete
Work
In Wisconsin, more than anywhere else,
the road toward winning the support of the
working class, lies in the exposure of the social
demagogy and the smashing of the s. P. and
Progressive influence over the masses, We
failed to to convince the workers, even those
whom we could reach, that social-demagogy is
the voice Of their class-enemy, we didn't expose
concretely the difference between socialist
words and deeds, we didn't clarity that the sup
port of the Social-fascists as lesser evil means
the support of the main evil capitalism.
Furthermore, workers voted Socialist abb
stained from the polls Gin one working class
I-irf IF oriy1a nod IF
because, while agreeing with our ultimate aim
and admiring our sincerity and militancy, they
did not see any immediate result coming to
them out of voting Communist. Our election
campaign was not properly tied up with the
struggle of the unemployed and employed work
ers. Although all the three units in the district
were born as a result of the hunger march last
June, our comrades were so busy with the
election campaign" that unemployed and factory
work was neglected, instead Of intensified. The
few, spontaneous attempts against the forced
labor city project in Racine, which attracted
more attention on the part Of the workers and
more excitement on the capitalists side than
all our speeches. gave the key to our fight
against social-demagogy but this was not fol-
lowed up Our political shortcomings were
coupled up with wrong methods and poor or
ganization. The failure to follow minimum
plan of work for the weeks of the campaign,
failure to involve the membership, not to speak
of the hundreds of sympathetic workers, in the
campaign, the narrow, bureaucratic tendencies,
which one representative of the section even
helped to develop, instead of checking them,
must also be added to the negative features
of the campaign.
In spite of all these mistakes and shortcom-
ings, the election campaign was real step
forward to build our Party, ideologically and
organzationally alike. We more than doubled
our membership, reached into new territories,
drawing in workers from important factories,
laying the foundation for several shop nuclei.
The methods of sharp self-criticisIn which was
a keynote of the recent section convention, the
more serious analysis of socal-demogogy will
help to make up for the past mistakes. The
opportunities are good. The workers, both en-
ployed and unemployed, literally starving,
it is our task to mobilize them for immediate
relief, tieing them up with the struggle for I'M
employment insurance, which will help to under
mine the strength of the social-fascists and
build mass Party.