The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-05-14
Ey SAM DON

p million workers demonstrated
ON May list. The militant tradi-
tions of the American working class
of the first stormy days of American
capitalism are being revived. But
not just merely revived. The earlier
Z militant traditions in this period OF
crisis, in this period of wars and
revolutions, are enriched by deep
er revolutionary content. Led by
, the Communist Party, armed with
Marxism-Leninism, the present day
militant struggles of the American
working class assume purposeful-
ness and consciousness.
It is well to recall now some of
the statements of Marx and Engels
on the development OF the Ameri-
can working class. The ideas bear
testimony to their profound insight
in the driving forces of the class
struggle in America and their faith
in the American working class. In
1892 EngelS said:
when the Americans once begin,
they will do SO with an energy and
yirulence in comparison with which
we in Europe will be children
And the American working class
has begun.
In the brief period Of prosperity"
the Second Socialist International
declared Marxism dead. From
Hoover through Hillquit to Love-
stone and Cannon, American capt.
taiisn was presented as the proof
of the fallacy of Marxism
A typical expression OF the atti-
tude which pronounced Marxism
dead is the following statement
made in 1923 by one of the leading
German Socialists and trade union
lists, MIR. Tarnov, who said: i
I'VE must distinguish two epochs
In the development of capitalism.
the epoch of British capitalism,
which was limited in it's POSSIBLE
tiles Of expansion, and the epoch of
American capitalism, which on the
basis Of the latest technical ad-
vances can unendingly expand and
develop. For the first epoch Marx
and LaSsalle were typical. They
maintained that wages are deter
mined by certain economic laws.
that they depend upon the cost of
labor power, etc. For the second
epoch Ford is typical. He proved
that capitalism can prosper while
the workers need not at the same
time remain poor"
Here the mass murderer Ford is
substituted by the Second Socialist
international as the savior of the
working class in place of Marx.
But it did not take long for capital
ism itself to tear to shreds the
fine" theories of the leaders of the
Second Socialist International.
The present world economic crisis.
which began in 1929, demonstrated
before the toiling masses throughout
the world that it is not Ford, that
it is not Kautsky and Hillquit, but
Marxism and Leninism which they
should choose as their guide to
action.
In the beginning Of 1890, Eilfer-
ding, the theoretician of the Ger
man Socialist Party could still
muster courage to say:
Modern capitalism is overcoming
and removing everything which
made for the anarchy Of capitalist
production"
Let us compare this statement of
Hilferding's, Of his unlimited faith
in the stability of capitalism, with
the following statement which APP
peared in one of the last issues Of
the Annalist:
I'VE have all hoped that the de-
preston in business had spent its
force. 1890 was bad. 1891 was
worse. And now 1882 seems gem
orally worse than 1881, but the most
alarming feature right now is that
there seems to be few signs that
1888 will be much better
thus we see how capitalism lis
sfSyarcOnoinp' ifs anarchy of t,rodl,o