The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-20
PARTY LIFE
Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Com
mittee Communist Party, U. S. A.
Notes from the Chicago District
Org Letter

Against Seasonal Communists"
COME comrades think that the class struggle
~ stops in summer-or else we must examine
their whole political understanding, since they
practically want to abandon work because it is
summer and hot. But it is not too hot for
10000 miners to strike and fight in Pennsyl-
vania or 1900 in Orient, So. Illinois. Neither is
it too hot" for the bourgeoisie to push forward
theoretically, via Hoover the Moratorium Plan
the war preparations against the Soviet Union.
AS Communists we must continue our work
in all seasons. Only tired radicals will use
the weather as an excuse. The same people
in winter will find rain or snow also an excuse
We have more campaigns and activity than ever
before. because the class struggle is sharpening
and we must keep all members active. We
serve notice on all Section or Unit leaders
no leaving the city for the summer. See point
"e' under Party Structure ir this letter for
rules re Vacation"
Factory Work
An examination of the minutes of the Sec
ton Committees shows almost complete ne
glect of factory work. This is a fundamental
weakness. which can only mean our separation
from the working class, since this must be one
of our most important methods of contact and
organization. Each Section set itself tasks to
organize grievance committees in specific shops
The failure to carry this thru, should be of the
greatest concern-inStead we seem to follow an
ostrich policy of thinking if we ignore it, we
can get away from it. This question of fac
tory work is the real yardstick to test our Boil
shevik qualities and we show ourselves so far
incapable of successfully tackling this organiza-
tional job Here is what Comrade Kapsukas
in "Lenin on Organization" has to say:
But the Bolshevik Party always concen-
trated its attention on the work in the fac
tories and on establishing nuclei in them
The Party Committees knew precisely how
many workers there were employed at par
ticular factory, what we're their conditions
how many members of each Party In shop and
their sympathizers. It was in the factories
that the Bolsheviks conducted their work prin-
cipaly"
Every Section must examine this and take the
most drastic steps to put this work in motion
the militant West Virginia miners movement
Furthermore, Lewis and Green. and Murray.
demanded and received the abject surrender of
Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney-the secretary
of the district at that time. So abject was this
surrender that Fred Mooney, one of the UMWA
delegation to the Portland convention of the
A. F. of L. in Portland 1923, acted as a witness
for the prosecution when I was unseated as the
delegate from the Butte (Mont) Central Labor
Council on the two charges of being member
of the Communist Party and of having SLAM
dered the officials of the UMWA
The depths to which the once militant lead
ers of the West Virginia miners had sunk can
be best estimated when it is stated that the
Islander" consisted of having published ac editor
of the Butte Bulletin, at that time the official
organ of the Montana Federation of Labor and
the Butte Central Labor Council, the signed
statements of Lewis and harrington accusing
each other of receiving hundred thousand dol
lars In one instance, and seven hundred and
fifty thousand dollars in another for selling out
the Illinois and West Virginia miners. (These
documents are still in existence and if anyone
wonders why these vultures indulge in such dan
gerous quarrels the explanation is to be found in
the fact that these palace struggles are simply
the reflection of the fight between certain
groups of operators for control of markets and
the UMWA This is the key to all the internal
struggles in the UMWA up to the time of the
rise of the militant left wing led by the Trade
Union Educational League)
ITO be continued
~~" =. 4se44la.. -. 81.