The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-03-24
''Tuxn Arts Loose Like
Furies to Tear Cuts
of Capitalism
By ROBERT MINOR

THIS is time when no single
i commodity brings a higher price
in the marketplace Of decaying,
obsolete and unscientif1c capitalist
culture, than the idea Of the OBJ
soleteness" or 'unscientific char
acter" Of Marxism; the bourgeoisie,
wherever it can, slaughters in the
fascist abbatoir, the best sons of
the working class TO "exterminate
Marxisn."
Any bright revolutionary" ped
dler in these days with half a
knowledge Of his wares can do bust
ness in selling the vulgar garbage
that D. A. r. lecturers would throw
at Marxism If they knew the lam
guage.
The peddlers are busy: Messrs
Music, Budenz and Harvey Fire
stones new recruit to this Com
munism, = Mr.. George Schuyler
are crying the virtues of mot
national socialism" but a
national communism" Of you get
the ultra-modernity Of it, Mr..
GoebbelsD In Mr.. v. F. Calyer-
toms fence for stolen literary works
land for anything else at a price,
the dull ass Eastman sells second
hand monograph records from the
estates of DR.. Duehring and Eduard
Bernstein, on the 'unscientific
character of Hegelian Marxism" and
the song book Of the true Lenin-
ism" that calls for war against
Marxism and against the Commun-
ist parties of the world, and gives
the ultra social fascist justification
for war against the Union Of Soviet
Socialist Republics.
Eastmans solemn chant that
Lenin Ignored" in his practice"
the dialectical materialism Of Marx
in which he formally believed"
should read Eastman on Lenin in
stead Of Lenin on Marx; and who
does not know that in 30 volumes
Lenin In practice and with full eX-
PLANTATION made use Of the MARKHAM
dialectical method, writing one
whole classic volume on precisely
the subject approached exactly from
the point Of view that Eastman says
Lenin ignored and attacking pre-
cisely such asses as Eastman.
QUT even in some places where
- the scientific character of Marx
is acknowledged" there has been
an attack in other forms.
OF an alleged righteousness,
"unreadableneSs," 'longwindedness"
of Marx more particularly of
Marks Capillary it has been the
fashion talk in the Socialist Party
since the day of its birth; it might
be called a fashion that partly con-
ditioned the embryo of that party.
This legend Of the "unreadableness"
Of Marx was one of the petty forms
through which reformism made war
on MarxiSm in America. The mat
ter is particularly important today
when so many sincere socialist
workers are turning with disgust
from the now more open frauds of
the Socialist Party. Disgust with
these frauds does not transform a
long -misled socialist workers into a
Communist, a pseudo-Marxist into
Marxist; whole transformation
of his outlook is necessary. For this
transformation one must turn to the
works of Marx and Lenin.
But before the 'ponderous"
volumes of Marx stands the priest
whose name is Thomas (who prob
ably never read page of Marx J,
or it may be Father Oneal (who
/ certainly never understood page of
it, And the unread and seven
sealed "ponderous" volumes of
Marx are supposed to contain some
where in their 'unreadable, and
uncut pages the explanation of the
mystery (if they could only be
read) of how Noske, Scheidemann
and Wells, although they turned
artillery on the Berlin workers in
1918, and Otto Bauer though he
asked only to be allowed to help
Dollfuss turn the artillery on the
Vienna workers in 1884, are still the
true purveyers Of Marxism!
There can be no substitute for
Marx. And this is especially true
in this epoch of imperialist wars
and revolutions when Marxism Is
Leninisn. Today, when Marxisrn
is living Bolshevisrnl
THERE Is no experience In the
1 realm of literature more trans
forming of ones life than the dis
covery of the power = the fresh
dynamic immediateness Of the basic
works of Marx-the discovery that
Marxisn In the epoch of imperial
list war and proletarian revolution"
is Leninisn1, that it is today the
theory and the tactics of the prole-
tartan revolution in general and the
theory and the tactics of the dicta-
torship of the proletariat in par
ticular."
But who is taking those "pon-
derous," "unreadable' volumes down
from the dusty shelves and bring
ing them, over the heads of the
uncomprehending professors, to the
workers in steel-mills, the coal
mines, the automobile works, who
can understand them, and to whom
they are neither ponderous nor I'M
readable?
In this, of all times, it is neces-
sary to turn all the arts loose
like SO many furies to tear the
CUTS of capitalism.
We don't do enough of this, nor
do we do it rapidly enough, nor
skilfully enough.
NOW Hugo Gellert* has done a big
~ and beautiful job in taking
Marks Capital" to the litho-
graph stone and spreading its crisp,
fresh beauty on the pages of pop
ular work of art. Sixty pages from
two of the three volumes of that