The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-21
Eleventh InstalIment)
I. WHY JUST NOW?"

WE MUST deal with yet another attempt which
is aimed at awakening mistrust among the So
cial-Democratic workers against unity of action
The agreement arrived at between the Commu-
mist Party of France and the Socialist Party was
received by the leaders of the Second Interna-
tional in way which cannot even be described
as making the best of a bad job!
The chairman of the Second International, the
leader of the Belgian Labor Party, Emile Wander
velde, wrote follows in his article in LIE PeupIe
entitled THE International and the Communists"
on July o. 1884,
"The acceptance by our French comrades of
the proposal made by the Communist Party for
joint action against fascism and war is an event
whose range goes far beyond the bounds of the
Socialist Party of France. 1 may say at once that
am in perfect agreement with Leon Blum, Paul
Faure and Lebas when 1 confess that it would
have been morally impossible for them to answer
this offer with blank refusal. However, if we
bear in mind what was happening only yester-
day, the astounding VOLTE-FACE in Communist
tactics gives grounds for justified mistrust"
What interests us here is not Vanderveldes
opinion to the effect that Leon Blum Paul Faure
and Lebas only accepted under moral pressure"
the offer of the Communist Party for common
struggle against faScism and imperialist war This
statement of his must be answered by the leaders
of the French Socialists What we want to deal
with here is Vandervelde's assertion regarding an
astounding volteface in Communist tactics" which
in his opinion consists in the fact that the Com
munist Parties have made offers to the leaders of
the Social Democratic Parties with the aim of es-
tablishing unity of action
NOTHING DAUNTS COMMUNISTS
If Vandervelde is surprised by the patience bv
the pertinacity of the Communists in the struggle
for unity of action then he only shows how ill ac
quainted with the Communists he is No difficulty
however great can cause the Communists to give
up the struggle for the united front before state
power has been won. But if Vanderyelde wants tn
make the Democratic workers believe that it
is only in this year that the Communists have made
such offers to the Social Democratic Party leaders
this denotes something more than ignorance. it
denotes definite malicious intenton-to SOW mis-
trust among the Social Democratic workers by
hushing up facts which cannot be done away with
We do not want to go back to the more distant
past OF ten or twelve years ago when the Com
munlsts proposed common actions against Italian
faSclsm and their proposals were rejected by the
Second international. We will take only one or
two examples from the more recent past of the in
ternatonal labor ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS which show
that the Communists have not neglected oppor-
tunities OF making proposals to the Social-Demo-
cratic Parties for common actions against the COM
class enemy
Only one or two examples:
CITES ACTIONS IN BERLIN
In face OF the growing advance of the fascist
danger, the Berlin district leadership of the Conn
munist Party of Germany addressed itself in June
1882 to the Berlin district leadership of the Social
Democratic Party of Germany, making proposals
Tor common actions against fascism in Berlin On
the day Of the coup d'etat of Won Papen the Ger
man Communists, on July 20, applied to the head
quarters of the Social Democratic Party Of Ger
many and Of the German General Confederation of
Trade Unions with view to joint resistance to the
fascist terror When the German bourgeoisie placed
power in the hands of Hitler, the Communist Party
OF Germany, on January 80, 1888, once again APP
Piled to the headquarters of the Socia-Democratic
Party of Germany and of the German General Con-
federation of Trade Unions with a similar united
front proposal aimed at the organizing of gem
era strike.
All these united front proposals were answered
by the Social-Democratic Party and the refornnist
trade union leaders with blank refusal
The pretext for rejecting these united front pro-