The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-05-24


We old Negro youth innocent
Willie Brown, is today IA
Proposed Candidate cling legal lynching at the
OF the Communist hands Of the white ruling
rafty for vice. class its courts and police,
PrsSiaent- 1t is not an accident that
~ his article Mr. Rhodes has not one word Of
-5~ention or condemnation Of this hideous frame
~ CT an innocent Negro working-class youth.
v.sh this angle I will deal more fully later.
rrst let us proceed to an examination of Mr..
Rhodes article.
Mr. Rhodes pretendS great lmpartia1ity in dis
clsSing the growing influence OF the Conlmun~
igt Party among the Negro masses. He admits
that thousands Of Negroes are turning to Com
rlunism. He states that he has beer told 'that
there are more dark-skinned than white Com
munists in Philadelphia This in Mr.. Rhodes
Bourgeois mind, is clearly something to be dis
couraged. And Mr. Rhodes sets out very cleverly
II raise doubts in the minds of the Negro toiers,
doubts as to whether Communism can solve the
Questions of economic robbery and exploitation,
Ct national oppression. Mr.. Rhodes sets up his
class-the Negro bourgeosie-as the only class
among the Negroes capable of thinking, and
writes the following gem
Thoughtful Negroes may reason that the
philosophy and economic theories of Commun-
I'm are unsound and will not obtain for them
of their labor or a larger share of justce-but
a drowning will grab at a straw"
In previous articles I have dealt in detail with
the Marxist theory and its application to the
struggles and problems of oppressed national
nlinoritieS and of the whole working-class
viii not go into that aspect in the present ar
ticle, but will give a concrete example Of how
Communism has successfully solved both ma
tional ana economic problems in the Soviet
Union where the workers of the various races
have overthrow capitalism and thereby abolish
ed the roots of race hatred and of exploitation
Of man by man And I will quote a respected
liberal intellectual, j. Louis Fischer, who had
an article in the May Is issue of The Nation,
entitled The Jews and the Five-Year Plan. In
that article Mr. Fischer wrote
THE Five-Year Plan is revolutionizing the
character Of Soviet Jewry. at the same time it
promises to save the Jews of the Soviet Union
from the economic eclipse which threatens the
Jews Of almost all other East European coun-
{ tries, The tragedy of European Jewry is its
niddle-class composition. In Poland, Rumania
the Battles and the Balkans a new national
petite bourgeoisie is expelling the Jew from his
tchief profession-commerce Using anti-Senl-
iitiSm as a croTbar, it is quickly loosening the
Jewish hold on marts and rialtos
"CZarism nOurished the roots of anti Semit-
tiSih Will gnu anu Win TlFerS OF DtOOus tne re-
yoIution withdrew these foods. The BoIsheyiks
indeed, tried to burn out some of the roots and
to poison others. The roots, to be sure are deep.
Anti-Semitism is a hardy plant Nevertheless,
snti-Semitism in Russia is waning. The state,
the Communist Party, and social institutions
like schools clubs and trade unions are making
every effort to combat it. The BoIsheViks con-
denim anti Semitism as reactlOnary and as a
weapon used by capitalism to infIame racial an
imOsty in order TO obstruct class antagonism
Active propaganda against anti-Semitism is
conducted in Soviet schools, clubs, and news
papers. The struggle with it also takes the form
OF trials to demonstrate its evils. In a factory,
for instance, Russian worker has insulted a
Pew. The incident is not very serious 1t might
have been overlooked. But the authorities seize