The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-03-13
What Is the MteUectuGL's
Role in Workers Fight?
Earl Browder, Mary van Kleeck, Granville Hicks
Participate in Symposium

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only mean support of the Commu-
mist Party, on the record of the
Party as a real leader of struggles,
with leadership sound1y based in
theory, and effective in practice.
The Communist Party" he said,
sis the only heir Of the American
revolutionary tradition" The at
titude the intellectual should hold
toward the revolutionary movement
he expressed in the words of an
Italian Communist who said to him
THE intellectual must raise him
self to the level of the proletariat.
This statement he interpreted when
he declared that only through ac-
tive participation in the struggle
with the working class can the in
tellectual learn the political realities
Of the cause to which he gives his
allegiance.
Why are the intellectuals inter-
ested in the question of their place
in company with the working class?
asked Earl Browder, and answered
that it is because they are already
beginning to realize that the cap
italist class, which leaves them to
starve by hundreds of thousands,
has not much use for them any
more.
The Party and the Intellectual
The Communist Party, as a seri-
Gus, responsible revolutionary party
preparing to take power, is looking
for its potential allies, because it
needs every bit of support it can
get. In this search, it is the first
party in the history of the working
class to work out seriously and con-
cretely its relations to the oppressed
nationalities, the farmers, the in
tellectuals.
We do not approach the intel
lectuals as one homogeneous group, Z"
he said We know that the ma
jority of them will crawl to the
feet of those who destroyed them,
and offer their services to mobilize
the fascist bands"
For that very reason. the PARTY
welcomes the best representatives of
the intellectuals, who have come
or will come over to the reyolu-
tionary working class. Those to
whom the integrity of their work.
whether scientific or artistic, is of
first importance, must break with
capitalism" he said. "And others
come from political conviction
that there is no hope for the cap
italist system, and that the only
force capable of creating a new
system is the working class"
The "Semi-skilled" Intellectuals
Some who come are not equipped
to say, he said, instancing Theodore
Dresser, who revealed himself un-
able to penetrate TO the decisive
questions of class relationship and
political policy, could find no con-
sistent role for himself in the
movement.
A difficult, though subordinate,
problem of the Party, in its rela-
tons with intellectuals, is set by
what has been called the semi
skilled intellectual" he said-those
who do not think concretely and
clearly, who cannot take a firm
stand, who are looking for a con-
venient resting place where they
can salve their revolutionary con-
science
It is thse, he declared, who are
appealed by such grouplets as the
Trotskyists, and the American
Workers Party" whose main plat
form is criticism of the serious.
business-like revolutionary party.
the Communist Party.
To the objection of such people
that the Communist Party, as a
part of the Communist Interna-
tional, and receiving directives from
Moscow, cannot become real
American party, he declared that
those who undertake the greatest
task which humanity has ever set
itself, the task of building a new
society, must learn from those who
have already done it, and done it
IF one is not interested in d.
receives from Moscow that only
means that he is not interested in
building socialism at ALL" he de-
clared.
And to those who honestly wish
to play their part in the revolu-
movement, he declared, 1.-THE
Communist Party places no obliga-
ton on its collaborators except the
obligation to stand fast, and to-
work theoretically toward our COM
mon goal"