The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-09

IA ing throughout the capitalist world.
Terrified by the unmistakable rise of
working-class militancy everywhere, with
the crisis-racked toilers beginning to take
the offensive against the hunger and wretchedness
which is their daily lot under capitalism the cap
talist ruling class is everywhere rapidly turning to
increasing fascist reaction to defend its rule against
the actions of the masses.
In the United States, the Roosevelt government
is moving, amid the shooting down of strikers on
the picket lines through the treacherous channels
of industrial truce to chain the workers against
the use of their most powerful weapon, the strike
In France, a leading bourgeois diplomat, quoted
with fear and trembling this morning by the Wall
Street Journal, states quite frankly:
at is not so much that fear for the
near future, as it is revolution"
In Germany, the Nazis, facing economic ruin,
plunging headlong into imperialist war have let
loose a reign of unbridled terrorism against the
working class smashing trade unions, keeping Ernst
Thaelmann, Torgler and thousands of anti-Fascist
fighters in the torture cells of their dungeons and
concentration camps. In its brutal desperation,
German Fascism is speeding the execution trial"
of Thaemann for Oct. Is.
IT IS decaying capitalism, a system ridden with
chronic crisis, which breeds this black reaction
this atmosphere of Sitting rot and brutality The
world forces Of counter-revolution are swiftly
marshalling against the irresistibly rising world
forces of revolution against the forces Of liberation
from the yoke of capitalism and its crisis
At the forefront of this advancing world re-
action stands American capitalism which, as the
recent testimony at the Senate Arms investigation
abundantly confirmed supplies this world reaction
with arms and money, munitions for the re-arming
of Fascist GERMANY Munitions md The
counter-revolutionary reaction of Chang Kai-Shek
in China, and arms to crush the Cuban revolution
The increasing evidence of officially coun-
tenanced, organized ant-semtism in this country
evidenced by the speech of former Ambassador
Gerard yesterday and the data made public in the
recent issues of the New Masses is sinister symp-
tom.
THESE developments are not something remote
from the life of every American worker. They
affect him and his family profoundly. The menace
of rising Fascist reaction faces every American
worker, every member of trade union, every mem
Der of the Socialist Party, every honest person who
believes in the progress of society.
Certainly, the time is more than ripe for uniting
all anti-fascist forces, for the welding of all
haters of political reaction into mighty United
Front Against Fascism and Imperialist War! Ger
tainly the time has passed when we can look pas
slVely ON while political reaction prepares to make
life he'll under the heels of open capitalist dictator
ship
In Spain, Socialist and Communist workers are
achieving in the fire Of revolutionary action, the
unity OF the working class. Can Socialist workers
in this country remain indifferent to this ire
mendous event? Should anything be permitted to
stand in the way of welding this precious unity of
the working class in this country? Must not this
striving for the unity of Socialist and Communist
workers become leading subject for discussion in
the Socialist Party locals?
Can the workers in the A. F. of L. trade unions
submit to the advance of that reaction which will
smash their unions destroy their right to strike
and picket? Will we permit Roosevelt to trick the
American working class to surrender the strike
weapon which alone can win better conditions in
the shops?
mighty United Front movement against po-
htcal reaction, against Fascism for the freeing of
Thaelmann, who symbozes the world fight against
Fascism, a movement to defend the right to strike
this is the immediate need of the hour.