The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-01-04


pletely into the proletarian novel.
AS against the richly detailed
- mountain-life, the scenes Of the
industrial class conflict. of the
great Gastonia strike, are much
too slightly rendered, sometimes
resulting in deficiencies that bring
about a weakening OF The politicel
force of the work. An instance IA
point is the very incorseqlentia&
half-page-long description OF tins
smashing of the strikers relse
store-one of the outstanding mo-
ments in the history OF the great
strike. The very nature of the
book convinces one that this per-
functory handling of that historic
scene is not due to an avoidance OF
the clash of the class war, but
rather, perhaps, to sense of iny
adeqacy in the author to do the
scene justice, Yet one cannot
help reading into this omission an
unconscious fear of stylistic Of
Tense against a work that is, for
the greater part, written in a per.
vasiyely muted tone.
And is it not this loyalty to the
pervaSive style which has led the
author to employ soft indirectionS
and muffled tones for ideas ana
purposes that call for bold, OUT
spoken terms? When organizes
tons built and maintained by the
working class come to the aid of
the strikers with legal defense and
financial relief, what revolutionary
purpose is served in novel that is
enthusiastically faithful to the min
utest detail of the mountain-lif il
describes, if it refers vaguely to
zone of the women relief workers."
or mentions merely that "the union
lawyer was getting their names
in order to bail them out with
money sent by workers and those
sympathetic to workers" The
workers could not carry on reYolu-
tionary mutual aid merely through
sporadic means of workers and
those sympathetic to workers."
Without organization the workers
can extend one another no effec-
tive relief and no legal aid In
strikes or in class struggle victimi-
cations. The names of the organic
cations that came forward with
heroic solidarity to aid the Cas-
tonia strikers and their families
were the International Labor De-
tense and the Workers Interna-
tional Relief. Have not their names
a place in a realistic novel of
historic dramatic conflict in which
they played principal parts?
WHEN We pass from these critical
W observations to the conSidera-
ton of the positive contributions of
To Make My Bread, we come upon
qualities embodying principles that
affect the very destiny of the prole-
tartan novel in America. Let. us
take the subject of the book. All
too few have been the writer's that
have drawn for their material on
the rich and inspiring revolutionary
tradition of the American working
class. Still unrendered into stimu-
lating revolutionary literary forms
are the great heroic struggles, the
deeds, the martyrdoms. the victories,
the losses and the advances of the
American proletariat. Now most
especially, against the increasing
advocates of American exceptional
iSm,-of a non-reyolutionary way
out of the capitalist crisis for the
American working class, of a basic
American revisionism of Marxism,
the American revolutionary novel;
lists must feel themselves called
upon to come forward with stirring
presentations of the traditional
militancy and revolutionary fervor
of the American workers: the ma
tive, the foreign-born, the white
and Negro toiling masses. Grace
Lunpkin shows the way by drama
tizing the great Gastonia strike.
TO Make My Bread represents q
4 heightened political level in the
| development of the American re-
| volutionary novel in that it is free
from the condescension of upper.
class utopians who come to lead
the poor people. We have here.
although only toward the very end
OF the book, a proletariat which
recognizes that with its own or
ganized strength it must wage its
struggles, that its sa1s must give
forth its leaders. JOnn, the noun
taln-born, the new proletarian,
comes forward as leader. John
of the local working class, John,
whom as boy, we have heard
called white trash" by the rich
boys, the living, palpable, unheroic
John, leader yet part of the mill
hands on strike.
To Make My Bread enyisages the
struggles of the workers not only
against the capitalist structure, but
against its huge, complex super
structure-the State, the church,
the loathsome charity societies, the
various open and subtle agencies
of physical and mental oppression.
1t sees the struggle of the American
workers as the struggle OF the Negro
masses side by side with the white,
as war against the virus OF white
chauvinism. 1t sees the victorious
outcome of the workers struggle
only in the overthrow of the cap
italist class. 1t sees the realiza.
ton of that outcome only on the
basis OF a revolutionary program,
only through revolutionary leader.
ship.