The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-07-26
Communist Votes Are
d Weapon

IN TODAY'S edition of the Daily Worker
/ there appears the full text of the Com
nlunist Party platform in the Congress
sionaI elections. Here is an active, keen
edged instrument of struggle in the hands
of the working masses against the capital
list class and the government agencies
through which it rules
The Communist Party considers elections as only
one form of the struggles in which the working
class is constantly engaged but considers them as
struggles of extreme Importance.
The Communist Party leading in the everyday
fight of the masses of people for improved conditions
looks to elections as means OF broadening these
struggles and throwing into them the strength OF
increased numbers of workers
II is with this in mind that the platform sets
forth the demands against Roosevelt's New Deal,
against capitalist terror and the growing tendencies
toward fascism against the Negro oppression;
against war preparations With this in mind the
platform urges fight for unemployment and social
insurance and for immediate relief for workers and
farmers
The platform itself states more clearly than any
naranhrase. the aims and views of the Communists
in this or in any election;
"rThe Communist Party calls upon the millions
of workers and farmers, Negro and white, to not
only elect Communist Congressman and all other
Communist candidates, but to boldly and deter
rnjnedlv take up and broaden the mass fight for
the immediate demands set forth in this platform.
This alone can win immediate and substantial VIC
tories for the toilers.
More than that, the fight for these de-
nands is the starting point in the workers struggle
for political power, for a workers government, for
a Soviet government in the United States, which
orr,, he rantnlist crisis tn n
end in a manner beneficial to the masses"
With equal clarity and forcefulness the platform
describes the duty of Communist candidate for
public office and Of Communists who have been
elected to office:
I'm Congress they will lead the fight for the
demands and for the needs and interests of the
working class Outside of Congress they will aid
directly in building the workers organizations and
in leading the struggles of the toers for improved
conditions, against fascsm and against imperialist
war"
If the Communist election platform is really to
be an instrument of struggle however, every Com
munist, every sympathizer every class-conscous
worker must be called into service to make the
platform and its meaning known to the greatest
possible numbers
The vaunted democracy of capitalism places OPP
preSsve limitations the political organizations of
the working class. In many states the Communist
Party can insure itself of place on the ballot
only by the collection of large numbers of sigma
lures on nominating petitions. Collection of sufi-
Gent signatures in such cases therefore must at
once become one of the major tasks Of every class
conscious worker.
The Communist Party has made gains at the
polls in the past four years. Those gains must be
increased ten-fold in the coming elections-and
they be If Communists and their fellow workers
carry the campaign into every shop mill, Office,
picket-ne and workers home.