The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-10-28
Active Many Years in
Canadian Working
Class Movement
BY PHIL BARD

by EhAA IOkAhO
ERTDAY night, Sept. %, Jacob Dali
L noff was present among the thou
sands of workers who came to open
the Anti-War Congress. Dainoff was
one of those who cheered the appear
ance Of Henri Barbusse at the Con-
gress, and who Joined in the world
wide cry against imperialist war.
Having volunteered as q captain, he
was kept busy until the last seat in
the auditorium was cleared.
Saturday morning, Sept 80, Com
rade Jacob Dainoff lay dead in his
basement at Oil Tiffany st., Bronx.
in a room cluttered with his sculpture
and old furniture. After nearly 40
years of revolutionary activity as an
organizer, editor, Journalist, iron
worker and sculptor, Jacob Dainsff
was dead
Let us turn back to the year 1884,
during period of extreme unrest,
when the Russian Gear first launched
his bloody pogroms against the Jews.
Jacob Dainoff was born in a small
town near Wilma. The son of a Jewish
brick-Inaker cat the time one of the
lowly trades. Jacob was born into
an environment of racial oppression,
with the added stigma" Of being
poor mans son. Often as a pastime
the child Jacob would try to shape
images out Of the clay used for brick
making. But conditions in the home
didn't allow for this "foolishness"
Jacob went to work as apprentice to
locksnith. Little is known of Dali
MOTIFS life at this period, but we
know that it was about this time
that he first became acquainted with,
and joined the revolutionary Social
Democratic Party.
We meet him next (1902-1905) do
ing active work as a member of the
Regional Committee of the Bund
(Jewish Section Of the Social Demo-
cratic Party in the regional district
of Smargon, during period when
the Social Democrtic Party was max
ing great inroads amongst the Rus
sian workers and was winning many
ment. Jacob the Locksmith," as
Dainoff was called by the workers in
the region, helped organize the tan
merry workers for a strike at this time,
and soon became secretary of the
| Tannery Workers Union, one of the
strongest unions in Russia at the
time. Initiated by the Social Demo-
cratic Party, strike wages swept all of
Russia, the party grew overnight.
Workers defied the Gear and held
meetings on street corners, at fac
tory gates and in homes. The cry Of
Bread" rang through the streets.
The Gear answered this by sending
his police to shoot into the workers
meetings. He ordered the murder and
exile of many leaders of the Social
Democratic Party.
Despite the terror, the revolution
airy movement grew steadily. The
workers secretly armed themselves
and tied up all shipping in the strike
Eof the Dredging Fleet, and one morn
ing in December, 1905, the pent-up
wrath of the masses exploded.
The cry of ARMED instruction in
Russiai" broke the quiet of the world.
L VI d VI udyS lIlC WOlhEIS
barricaded in the streets welded
power. International financiers and
foreign embassies waited for the
Cars next move. The international
credit of the Russian capitalists and
the imperial government hung in the
balance. The Gar had to act and
! quickly. He let loose all the hell Of
armed fury, he wiped out in blood
all the gains made by the workers.
Then the reaction set in. Martial law
declared, thousands Of workers exc
cuted, thousands more sent into exile,
Cossack raids and pogroms were a
part Of the Cars agenda.
Jacob Dainoff was one of those
who were arrested and sent to Siberia
for his revolutionary activities.
THE Social Democratic Party de-
l veloped sharper plans to meet the
Czarist terror. Continuing to work
under ground, a group was elected
for the special task of smuggling
workers out of prison In 1907, the
same year that he had been impris-
oned, Dainoff was struggled out of
prison into Germany. He remained in
Germany only short time, studying
! the developments of the revolution
airy movement there, then travelled
to America (1908) and landed finally
in Paris. After the intense revolution
airy work in Russia, Daineff found 1t
difficult to acclimate himself and for
a time busted himself in travelling.
In Paris Daipoff visited many art
galleries and closely studied Euro
pean sculpture. In conversations with
comrades on the sculpture and paint
ing to be found in Paris, he would
speak of the bankruptcy of the bour-
geois artists, their failure to reflect
the life about them.
He asserted that art was an instru-
ment of class and In explaining the
relation Of art to society, showed how
the bourgeoisie shaped art in It's own
image and with the collapse Of the
bourgeois economic and social system
the culture too would become affected
and perish with the system that
nursed it. Dainoff spoke Of the grow
ing struggles Of the world proletariat
and Of the art that such movement
inevitably produces. "The proletariat
demands cultural expression" he re-
| peated, over and over again. After
many such conversations, which were
1 49, s<xlS4 lxxf. - j.