The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-02-14

freedom only to praise Roosevelt
and damn the Communists. AS a
trade union executive whose organ
ization has felt the heel Of Roose-
velt's boot on its face, he must find
other channels for his protests.
Broun's education is important only
because it typifes a similar process
going on in the minds Of millions.
RooseYelt's renewal Of the auto
mobile code and the Wolman Board.
+ which even william Green and the
A. F of L. Council did not dare go
along with any longer, even though
they were jointly responsible with
Roosevelt for its establishment last
March, has brought the whole ques-
ton to a head. Green himself is
forced to repeat the words of the
Communist Party, that the New
Deal is introducing iascism. just a
month after the Communist Party
announced its present Labor Party
policy, Green finds 1t necessary to
threaten" Roosevelt with the pros
pect Of Labor Party led by the A.
F. of L. Executive Council. Such a
threat by Green cannot frighten
Roosevelt very much, knowing as he
does by practical experience, the
narrow limits of the fighting"
ability of these leaders" but be-
hind that is the more real threat Of
q Labor Party over the heads of
Green B. Co., Just as the real strike
threat is never that voiced by the
A. F. Of L. leaders, but that which
threatens to go over their heads.
At the 5Srd Convention of the A.
F. Of L., the Communists called for
the withdrawal of all trade union
representation in the New Deal
committees and Labor Boards; we
were denounced as impossibilists
and disrupters, by Green, by Thorn
as, by Loyestone. Today Green and
company are forced to take the path
we pointed out then, or stand for
ever discredited before their mem
/ bership.
A Danger and an Opportunity
The open bankruptcy of the A. F.
of L.-Socialist Party leadership's
policy toward the New Deal, creates
at once the most serious danger of
destruction Of the trade union
movement by the s1arpened CAPT.
talist attack, and at the same time
the opportunity to revive the trade
unions with a new policy and a new
leadership. Equally important, it
opens wide the doors of the labor
movement for the development of a
real mass Labor Party. The change
for deep-going regeneration of the
trade unions is eXemplihed, above
all, by the most promising and
healthy rank and file movement
that has arisen among the steel
workers in the Amalgamated Asso-
citation of Iron, Steel, and Tin
Workers, which the officials are
combating with terrorism and mass
expulsions.
Not single argument, of the
slightest FEASIBILITY, can longer be
raised, in the light of these events,
against the decision on Labor Party
policy adopted by the Central Com
lnittee of the Communist Party. Al
ready it has been endorsed by the
Overwhelming majority of our mem
hership, without single vote
against 1t, and with only a few
scattering abstentions. What re-
mains, however, is the mastering of
the thousands of detailed problems
involved in carrying this policy out
in life. 1t depends upon our prsc-
teal work to decide what this pol
icy will look like in life.
The major problem connected
with the Labor Party, is the fight
to prevent the mass movement of
millions, breaking away from the
old parties, to be drawn into the
channels of a third capitalist party,
a progressive" party of the LaFol-
lette type
Two Opposing Forces
There does not yet exist clearly
defined Labor Party movement.
There is only the beginning mass
break-away, within which strug-
gle is going on between two main
class forces. These two forces are
those who, on the one hand, will
move heaven and earth to prevent
this movement going beyond the
limits of the fundamental interests
of monopoly capital, of profits and
private property in the means of
production; and. on the other hand,
those who would throw this move
ment into struggle against capital,
for the preservation and improve
ment of living standards at the cost
of profits and private property of
the rich.
Our main political task among the
million masses is to bring out clear
ly these two antagonistic class
forces, to differentiate the general
movement into these two main
camps, to raise the issues Of this
struggle so sharply and clearly that
the millions can see and under
stand, and to secure thereby the de-
feat and isolation of the leaders who
are the agents of capital in this
movement, trying to direct it into
channels harmless to Wall Street.
The leaders and groups which
typify the pro-capitalist tendency,
are the LaFollettes, the Upton Sin
clairs, the Olsens, the Huey Longs:
they are being joined by that part
of the Socialist Party leadership
typif1ed by Louis Waldman and the
right wing New York Committee,
William Green threatens to join