The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-02-17

TIE scientists Of the Soviet Union,
! meeting in the Fifteenth Ami
versary session Of the Academy Of
Science, have sent the following
appeal to the scientists of The
world.
Comrades.
The Academy OF Science OF the
Soviet Union, in its jubilee session
devoted to the Fifteenth Anniyer-
sary of the october Revolution,
turns to you with d hearty call to
march in step with the revolution
sry workers of physical toll.
The experience Of the great over
turn in our country has shown us
that only along this path eau We
find a way out Of that ruinous crisis
through which ali humanity is llv-
ing.
By this time no one can deny
that world history has come INTO
the most catastrophe phase of its
development and that all the con-
quests OF culture are threatened
from the technical foundations to
the highest achievements Of theory
which flower on earth.
The contradictions Of capitalism
with tremendous force expose their
bloody depths. The capitalist levi
athan states rugged out with first
class arms OF destruction and
death dealing apparatus, are ready
again to unleash all the demons Of
q new world war.
CRISIS SHAKES
CAPITALISM.
The economic crisis is shaking the
whole structure of the capitalist
system. The system is no longer
able to use its mighty productive
forces; it is cutting production,
it is turning tens Of millions into
jobless paupers, it is driving tech
Ticians and engineers from plants,
scientists from laboratories. 1t is
creating among bourgeois ideolo-
gists and their followers theoretical
conceptions which are themselves
of the highest danger to all culture.
This sinister theological reflex is
q sign Of the bottomless depths of
the general cultural crisis, ghost
like, which follows the crisis OF
capitalist economy. The struggle
against machines and the advocacy
OF technical primltivism goes hand
in hand with q poisonous growth
of mysticism; ardent optimism tax
ing all for granted gives way to
gloomy skepticism and flight into
the irrational search for q syntheSiS
oegenerates into an appeal to re-
Ggion, that is, an illusory solution
at the price OF capitulation Of the
scientific mind
AS way out of the blind alley
it is proposed: in the technical
deld, to exchange electricity and
machinery for the pick and
shovel; in economics, TO go back
to handlcrafts; in theory, to have
done with rational knowledge; in
art, to seek living springs in the
youthful cultures OF antiquity. This
is an unheard of cultural reaction,
an appeal to ataisrn, senseless and
at the same time utopian.
FREE TECHNIQUE
OF ITS SHACKLES
We, scientists and techniclanS Of
the Soviet Union, follow these
symptoms OF decline and degen-
GRAFTON with the greatest alarm.
We consider that the way out is
not in annihilating these powerful
physical and intellectual forces
from which capitalism has amas-
sed, but in freeing these forces from
capitalist bonds and developing
them. We consider that the way
out can be found not in going
backwards, behind capitalism, but
ahead Of capitalism to socialism.
We are firmly convinced that
history Imperatiyely demands
transition to q more accomplished
technique, to super large scale plan
ned production, powerful further
growth of science, and a synthesis
between theory and practice, a
mighty rise of all material and
spiritual culture.
1t is to this We call you, phySi-
cists and chemists, biologists and
biologists, engineers and technici-
ans, agronomists and doctors, his
torians and teachers. To this we
call all intellectual workers, who in
the lands of capital, in dark de-
spair, are ready to seek their souls
relief in musty Bastilles, in mental
hashish, in idealist and mystical
illusions.
The course Of the historical
events of which our country was
the arena has shown to all those
who are not blind that the only
force which can navigate the great
rapids OF history and carry after
it the masses is the proletariat.
CULTURE REVIVIFIED BY
THE PROLETARIAT.
Many Of us, sharing the caste
prejudices Of the intellectual aris-
tocracy, have looked upon the pro-
letariat as Oncoming Huns. destroy
erS OF culture and civilization. His
tory has shown, as it happens, the
opposite: capitalism is annihilating
culture and culture is saved and
revivitled by the proletariat, her
otc class, capable Of enormous sacri-
ices, q creative, constructive, or
ganlzing class.
Amid bloody battles, in ring Of
sabotage, intervention, blockades.
in the fortunes of hunger and ami