The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1935-08-09

" C4IO 6A11lS11C ctll w VI h1llS O1dS
Fellow Worker:
In my last letter l wrote about
how the Workers Party came into
existence, after many years of
splits and disintegration in the
radical movement, as a new uni
flying center for the revolutionary
forces. I concluded by stating that
we base our party on the teachings
of Marx and Lenin which have
been tested in the experience of
the international revolutionary
movment of the working class and
seek to apply these principles to
the realities of the American scene.
When we speak of our party as
Revolutionary" we mean, on the
one hand, that its aim is revolu-
tionary and on the other hand that
we believe in the revolutionary me-
thOd. We do not believe that the
masses can be delivered from pow
erty, unemployment, degradation,
war, by any reform of the capita
list system under which we live.
That system must be abolished,
wave slavery must be done away
with altogether. The workerh must
own and control the machinery of
production.
We do not believe that the work
ers and their allies can overthrow
the capitalist state, governmental
system, and the capitalist economic
system by purely legal, "democra-
tic, peaceful, parliamentary me.
thods. They will have to take the
revolutionary road to their goal.
AN EXAMPLE OF REFORM
As for curing the ills of the
workers by reforming capitalism
we have just been living through
two years of the Roosevelt New
Deal which was to do just that
And you know only too well what
that has got US. Salvation" ha.
been provided not for the workers
but for the capitalist class. Fac
tory pay-rolls are only 60 percen
of the 1926 level, for example, but
dividends and profits $50 percent
The average wage of the Ameri
can worker who was lucky enough
to have a job at all last year wa
around fifteen dollars a week. Tn,
citizenship paper Of millions o
"the proud American working clas
sons and daughters of Washington
Jefferson and Lincoln, is a relic
ticket-which entities them to nice
ly calculated rations after snoop
ing social workers have made sur
that there isn't an extra loaf o
bread in the closet or a nickel il
the pants pocket.
This takes place in a countr
where everybody could have a de
cent, comfortable home, plenty o
attractive clothing, abundant fooc
educational opportunity, money fo
travel and amusement, if factorie
were not standing idle, food bein
plowed under, and so on.
There is always some one VIII
promises the workers to fix thing
up. Hoover with his chicken in ev
cry pot and two cars in every gal
age. Roosevelt with his New Dea
Hooey Long with house, automc
bile and radio for everybody. Ism
it about time that the workers re
allied what Marx taught long ag,
that it does not make any differ
ence how well-meaning these cal
italist saviors may be there is n
way out for the masses under cal
italism?
For example, you tell employer
that we now have a New Deal, I
one is to get below a certain min
mum, everybody is to get hie
wages so "the masses may hay
purchasing power to buy the on
. put Of our mass production" an
then turn around and tell the boz
that he must run his business at
profit in competition with 9th,
bosses. and his chief concern
necessarily to put his prices I
as high as possible and to ke.
his costs, including his labor ess'