The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-02-23
Com munIStS
Saw Clearly
Through NRA
Revealed lis Harsh
Wall Street Aim
from Beginning


would accomplish for the workers
and for Wall Street.
This Roosevelt program was an
nounced in its full form about the
middle of June, 1888.
BY July 7, two or three weeks
later. at the special Conference of
the Communist Party. Earl BTowder,
Secretary of the Party, laid down In
every detail the meaning Of the
whole Roosevelt New DeaI-NRA pro-
gram.
Browder, speaking for the Com
munist Party, gave the American
working class a guide to action
against the MIRA.
Regarding the effect that the
codes would have on the concentra-
ton of monopoly Wall Street cap
ital, Browder stated what later was
to be confirmed by actual events:
classification: Under the mask of
the radical slogan Of control pro-
duction, she Industrial Recovery
Act has greatly speeded Up and CEN
trahzsd the process of justification
which has long been the dominant
feature Of American economy. There
is now being carried out a cleanup
OF all the little fellows. They are
forced to come under the codes
formulated by the trust which will
have the force of the law Their
doom is sealed, and they are busy
making the best terms possible for
voluntary assimilation before they
are destroyed.
Capitalist price fixing is given the
force of law, and the profits of the
great trusts are guaranteed by the
government.
LAS for controlled production we
have the word of an administration
spokesman that competition is not
eliminated; it is only raised to a
higher plane
The further strengthening of the
monopoly is intensifying all of the
chaos, the sntagonisms, the dispro-
portions in American economy. CON
trOlIed production is impossible on
the basis of capitalist private prop
erty. There is only the growth Of
the power of the big capitalists and
the intensification of all social and
economic contradictions"
On the vital question of wages,
While every single group of Ameri-
can capitalist, liberal and Socialist
opinion was singing HYMNS to the
rising wage levels that would mirac-
ulously appear out Of the MIRA codes,
BroWder drove home the COMMIT
mist analysis that NRA would smash
wage levels, hit the trade unions and
the right to strike and introduce a
reactionary-military tyranny against
the workers.
Certainly the events of the past
two years have borne out completely
the Communist analysis made in the
same speech; delivered when Roose-
yelt's signature on the MIRA bill was
hardly dry
The provisions of the Industrial
Recovery Act regarding labor pro-
vide much more Iarge-scaIe effort
at indirect militarization of labor,
though in a different form from the
forced labor camps. In the indus
tries the effort is to establish a semi
military regime under government
fixed wages, compulsory arbitration
Of all disputes with the co. eminent
as arbitrator, abolition of the right
to strike and of independent organi-
cation of the workers. These things
are to be achieved through the in
dustrial codes worked out by the
employers and given the force of law
by the signature Of Roosevelt. and
supported when and where neces-
sary by the A. F. of L. and the
Socialist Party who have already en-
tered Fundamentally into this pretty
scheme.
Tn the labor section of the New
Deal program is to be seen the
clearest examples of the tendencies
to fascisn. This is an American
version of Mussolinis corporate
state special state-controlled labor
unions closely tied up with and I'M
der the direction of the employers
For the working class, the In
dustrisl Recovery Act is truly an
industrial slavery act. 1t is one OF
the stems towards the militarlza-
ton Of labor. It is a forerunner Of
American fascism"
That was how the Communist
Party sized up the NRA from the
beginning.
This raz0r-liks accuracy was no
mere guess-work
1t was the triumphant applica-
ton Of the Marxist-Leninist theory,
based on Stains speeches and the
analyses of the Communist Inter
national.
A year late~ when the Commu-
mist Party met again in its Eight
National Convention in April. 1884.
its resolution again hammered
home the lesson that the MIRA had
always been the program of Wall
Street, and that its actual work
ing out could only be in the inter
ests of Wall Street.
what has happened with the
4NtW 0taL has II lduCug Nlduy
workers, in the first stages of dis
illusionment, come to that conclu-
sion. They are disillusioned with
the result, but still believe in the
intention. The S. P. and A. F. of
L. leaders try to keep them in this
stage. But this conclusion is en-
tirely too simple. The new deal
has not improved conditions for
the workers and exploited masses.
But that was never its real aim;
that was only ballyhoo; that was
only bait with which to catch
suckers.
TN its first and chief aim, the
new deal succeeded; that aim was,
to bridge over the most difficult
situation fer the capitalists, and to
launch a new attack upon the