The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-02-02
BY HARRISON GEORGE.

A READER calls our attention to article
"A entitled Sabotage" by one Louis Adamc,
appearing in Harpers Magazine for January,
quoting for our information the following para
graph:
g. There were rllnors among the T. w. WIS
hat the Communists in the United States had
riders from the new Rolshevik Government in
Goscow to sabotage on the American industry.
The rumors, L am satisfied were not without
0undation. Some time later the United States
department. Of Justice discovered and published
hat was described as an unquestionably au-
lentic and confidential circular sent by the
'Xecutive Committee of the Soviet Government
0 It's agents abroad urging them, among other
Kings, to inStigate general and particular
strikes njure machinery and boilers in factories,
and do everything possible to disorganize capt.
salst industries"
1t is worth remark. firstly. that this stupid lie
happens" to be given publication concurrently
with the Fish Committee maneuvers and other
obvious anti-Soviet war preparations The cru
mors among the IWW." and the vaporings of
the Department of Justice are equally false
To any Communist, and to any sensible worker
To any Communist, and to any sensible work
er, it is clear that it is wholly unnecessary for
the Soviet Government to instruct its agents to
"disorganze American industries" The Amer
can capitalists have done pretty thorough job
of that themselves Moreover, only a crack
Drained person could fancy that any Moscow
agents"-outsde of American industry and with
out the slightest control over it-could disor-
ganize it.
Such a job can only be done from the inside
OF industry and by those directing it, as was
shown to be the case in Soviet industry by the
confessions of the engineers at the Moscow
trial The article by Mr.. Adamic undoubtedly
into. Iolf -
capitalist sabotage in the Soviet Union.
Our reader remarks that the article also
leaves the inference that the tactics of the Com
munists and of the I. w. v. are Identical as
regards sabotage Practically, of course the
l. w. w. has given up sabotage except that
which it carries on against any revolutionary
action of the workers
And this sabotage is of course not ''injuring
machinery or boilers in factories but trying to
obstruct and disrupt the organization and action
of the masses under Communist leadership.
All of which raises the question of definitions
as to just what the word Sabotage means The
Communists have given neither blanket en-
dorsement nor blanket condemnation of sabo-
tage lin general" Sabotage embraces no eternal
and undying principle" uryn which Commu-
nists are required to pronounce a categoric
Judgment. Sabotage. as defined by the Mortified
capitalists means principally wholly, indi-
vidual acts of destructive character against
machinery.
Communists do not share the moral indigna-
ton OF the capitalists on this point, because a
moral attitude is beside the point but neither
do they believe that such individual actions help
the workers as a class in any way.
The Communists advocate mass action but
not for the purpose of "injurng machinery
but to take all machinery away from all CAPT