The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-02-23
Thomas Saw
IS Ocialist'
Trend In NRA
''NO More Wage Cuts, -
S. P. Paper Said
Hailing NRA

w oil d. ecu puI pOSe, bQe leadership
of the Socialist Party, in its own
special way, fell in completely with
the propaganda of Roosevelt.
Whereas the leadership of the A..
F. OF L. gave its aid to the Wall
Strest program embodied in the NJ.
R. A., by a complete acceptance Of
RooseVlt's program, the leadership
of the Socialist Party tempered its
acceptance with criticism"
But despite all this criticism. the
leadership of the Socialist Part.
notably Norman Thomas and Louis
Waldman, also aided in fasteni-
the codes on American labor by a
long series of statements proclaim
ing the codes as essentially in the
interests of the workers. The So
cialist Party leaders not only hailed
the codes as giving immediate bene-
fits to the workers and the labor
movement, but went so far in their
ballyhoo for the Roosevelt program
that they discerned Socialist
elements III it.
The first official expression of the
Socialist Party on the N. r. A. was
in the State Election Platform of
New York, April, 1888, in which
Morris Hillquit wrote: '"The N. r. A.
offers the working people Of Anne
RIGA a great opportunity"
On June 10, Norman Thomas
leaped into the campaign for the
N. R. A. with the following extraor-
binary advice to the American
working class:
The labor clause section 7s)
Of the N. r. A, If rightly used,
will give the workers an enormously
powerful weapon for progress to-
wards genuine Socialism"
On June %, with the Roosevelt
propaganda machines whirring
throughout the country, Norman
Thomas once again gave his aid to
this propaganda by writing in the
New Leader that collective bar
gaining and other rights guaranteed
to labor in the N.R.A. have genuine
value. :"
And the Socialist Jewish Daily
Forward on the following day June
%, joined this hymn to the Roose-
welt program with the following
jubilant promises to American labor:
"The time of wage cuts has gone.
American capitalists have come to
this conclusion and have declared
themselves for higher wages. And
Roosevelt also has come out for this
program"
A few months later, when the
Roosevelt propaganda was at it's
height and the Communist Party
alone was hammering at the Roose-
welt program, Norman Thomas pro-
claimed to the American workers
that RooSevelt's codes were already
ushering in the dawn of new social
order. To the American workers,
already beginning to experience the
harsh consequences of the New
Deal, Thomas stated; that the need
for struggle was a thing of the
past, for:
"The New Deal has given hope
and substantial advantages to
farmers and workers. "These
things" he said, do not consti-
tute Socialism, but State Capital
ism; but kind of state capi-
taIism undoubtedly influenced by
Socialist influence and agitation.
1t gives the workers a chance to
go forward in an orderly fashion.
The great hope of the N. r. A. is
that 1t may make 1t easier
little. to advance toward truly
Socialist society"
One may argue that perhaps no
more accurate analysis could have
been expected at so early a period
in the N. r. A.
But year after the codes went
into effect, in April 1884, after
thousands of workers had taken the
path of strike struggle against the
yoke of the Codes, as they began to
be felt in the shops and factories Of
the land, Louis Waldman, Socialist
Party leader, declared at the open
hearing on the N. R. A. at Washing
ton:
I'VE feel that the N R. A. has
been distinct step forward and
must be regarded in all candor and
honesty as an important branch Of
social legislation"
Throughout the entire period Of
the N. R. A., until very recently,
when it became no longer possible
to do so, Norman Thomas consis-
tently maintained that the active
intervention of the Roosevelt gov
eminent in the regulation of the
economic life of the country that
constituted the socialist element in
RoOsevelt's program.
Sharply contrasted with this was
the position of the Communist
Party, which insisted from the very
beginning that the intervention of
the Roosevelt government was far
from Socialism, and, on the con-
trary, was the active intervention Of
the capitalist state in the interests
of the capitalist monopolies.
The Communist Party based its
analysis on the following theory of
Lenin, who declared that whenever
any capitalist state regulated" in
dustry, it did so in the interests Of
the rich.
I'm America Lenin wrote, "as
well as in Germany, the regulation
of industry and economic life
creates for the workers military
prison. and for the bankers and
capitalists a paradise. The essence
of this regulation is that it raises
the bread basket of the workers
higher out of their reach and
guarantees secretly, and in a re-
dictionary, bureaucratic way)
higher profits to the capitalists
This was the sharp divergence in
Of +ta ic+ JnY.t