ATTACK on MINERS HITS ALL LABOR ------— Ci - Union Calls Two-Week Truce in Strike U

Workers Of The Worlds Unite! Trotsky’s Book On Stalin--And Its Critics —See Page 3— t h e MILITANTPUBUSHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE VO L X — No. 20 NEW YORK, N. Y., SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1946 PRICE: FIVE CENTS ATTACK ON MINERS HITS ALL LABOR -------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------— cI - Union Calls Two-Week Truce In Strike U. S. Imperialism Steps Up Drive Toward War A fte r Owners Agree To Come To Terms Shadow Over Latin America By Joseph Keller Plans To Tighten Military Grip The most savage and concerted strikebreaking assault ever hurled by Big Business and its government against American workers reached Over Entire Western Héimsphere its frenzied climax last Friday, May 10, the day the AFL United Min« Workers Union wrested an “agreement in principle” from the coal opera By Charles Carsten tors on its key health and safety demands and offered a two-week truce Diplomatic deadlock and heightened tension in the Big Four Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers was ac in the 40-day strike of 400,000 soft coal miners. companied last week by further military preparation and With a desperation born of fear before the demonstrated power aiM intensified war-propaganda on the part of American im solidarity of the m ilitant coal miners, the agencies of government, the big perialism. corporations, and every capitalist instrument of propaganda were mobilized Washington moved to expand®- Its world-wide ring of military ®for a ferocious attempt5^ bases. I t began to formally press to intimidate the miners Buffalo CIO for a unified m ilitary command Open The Books, Black Market and frustrate their just Backs Miners of the entire Western Hemis demands. W ith the mine phere. BUFFALO, N. Y„ May 7 — President Truman proposed “ a Say Los Angeles Price Levels strike as a pretext, Con The Buffalo CIO Council to program of military collabora gress renewed its drive night went on record in unani tion with other American states Transit Strikers mous support of the striking Sought On Meat for laws to shackle the AFL soft coal miners after a including the training, organiza SPECIAL TO THE MILITANT tion and equipment of the armed By Evelyn Atwood unions and help beat delegate from the CIO United forces’’ of all the countries on LOS ANGELES, May 10— Steelworkers Local 2601 read The Truman administra labors standards down. a strongly-worded resolution the North and South American The latest development in The invective, slanders, lies backing up the coal miners. Continents. the strike here of some 4,000 tion is preparing to capi and threats hurled at the min This resolution had been pass TWOFOLD AIM street car and bus operators tulate to the all-out cam ers increased in volume and un ed by Local 2601 the previous is a statement by D. D. McClurg, paign of the greedy meat restraint as it became clearer Under Truman’s super-imper evening. ialist plan the United States President of AFL Transporta packing trust to smash all gov that the profiteering mine oper would provide modern weapons, tion Union Local 1277, condemn ernment price ceilings on meat ators and the government were fensive unleashed at Truman’s standardize military training, or ing the Los Angeles Transit and legalize black market prices. being forced to yield major con cue surpassed in ferocity even ganization and equipment. The Lines for refusing to show its This was virtually admitted by cessions by the unshakable stand the strikebreaking drive of the President would be authorized to books in support of its conten Secretary of Agriculture Clinton of the mine workers. From all late President Roosevelt against “transfer military and naval tion that a fare increase is nec P. Anderson, when he testified reports, the union’s offer of truce, the wartime mine strikes of 1943. equipment” to other governments essary for it to meet the union’s on May 1 before the Senate with retroactivity for all gains Last week’s assault renewed and in the Western Hemisphere. wage demands. Banking and Currency Commit finally granted, came only after extended the virulent labor- Truman’s proposal to central Countering the company’s de tee, ostensibly for continuation the operators had wilted and in hating drive that followed V-J ize the command and standard mand for outrageous fare in of price “ control.” dicated their readiness to talk Day and reached its previous ize the armaments of the West creases before granting wage in Anderson asserted that if the terms. The day after the trace, climax during the General Mo ern Hemisphere m ilitary bloc has creases from its exorbitant pro OPA’s “ last effort” to funnel the UMW announced its further tors strike. a twofold aim. First, it would fits, the union has demanded meat back into regular channels demands for wage increases to POISONOUS BARRAGE help Wall Street tighten its im that the company open its books through restoration of slaughter talling 27 cents an hour. Advancing behind a poison- perialist stranglehold on the Lat for union and public inspection quotas was unsuccessful, the TRUMAN GIVES SIGNAL gas barrage from the boss press, in American countries. Second, to show that the wage demands only alternative was "abandon The signal for last week’s co . Congress, spewing labor - hate through it the nations of the could easily be met without en ment of these controls.” In oth ordinated anti - labor offensive and denunciations against the Western Hemisphere can be more tailing any fare increase. er words, legalization of the-sky- had been given by President Tru miners and their leaders, poured effectively organized for the con Backing up the fight of the is-the-lim lt prices. man himself with his scare-head anti-union bills into the legis templated war against the Soviet transit .workers, a public state 2,000 Steel Worker Delegates statement of the previous F ri lative hopper. Union. ment was also issued by Myra PACKERS' SABOTAGE day that the mine strike con The Senate even shoved aside The whole American ruling Tanner Weiss, organizer of the W ith meat on the hoof at rec fronted the country with an im its consideration of Wall Street’s class is moving in unison on this Los Angeles Local of the Social ord levels, the profiteering meat- minent “ national disaster.” militarism program and voted 66 decisive question of war prepar ist Workers Party, in which she Face Kev Issues At Convention packers are sabotaging the pro He followed this up by calling to 9 for Immediate discussion of ations. Both Republicans and called for the taking over of the cessing of meat until all price “illegal” the miners’ chief de the notorious Case Labor Dis Democrats combined last Thurs transit lines by the city to be By A rt Preis ceilings are removed. mand for a "royalty” to provide putes Bill. This is designed vir day to rush through the Senate operated on a non-profit basis Some 2,000 delegates, representing approximately Meanwhile the country is In a union health and welfare fund. tually to destroy the right to an extension of the Draft Act for the benefit of the citizens and 800,000 organized steel workers, will begin deliberations the grip of a serious meat fam Truman threatened “militant strike and to disembowel the which was to expire May 15. to ensure adequate wages for IN THE NEWS on May 14 in Atlantic City at the Third International Con ine. The bulk of the meat now action” to break the strike which American union movement. On May 11 the State Depart the transit workers. vention of the CIO United Steelworkers of America. I being processed is siphoned off he said was “ gradually” as&m- Both houses began considera ment revealed that it wanted Mrs. Weiss declared: .“ The This convention of the union®- ! into the black market for the ing the proportions of a “strike tion of hastily-drafted measures ■sovereignty over three strategic demands of the striking em How Wall St. Views in America’s most basic industry ers of all races, creeds and na wealthy. Working-class families against the government.” to make It “ Illegal” for the mine Pacific Islands formerly held by ployes for a wage increase with i The Famine Victims meets against a background tional origins, attained a unity find empty butcher shops. A t its peak, the anti-labor of- (Continued on Page 2) the British. “ These would be part out a price increase are emin unique in the experience of the in action, a singleness of pur Speaking recently before a Meat packers insolently point of a vast United States defense ently reasonable. The men and steelworkers. pose and endeavor never before out that the “ slaughter quota” congressional committee on the known in the industry. system in the Pacific,” stated women transit workers are notor- After 50 years of straggles which had little effect when pre (Continued on Page 8) (Continued on Page 8) problem of relief for the starv The greatest single sector of LARGEST FORD 600 UNIT and many bitter defeats, the the union. Big Steel, had pre viously imposed, w ill again fa ll ing abroad, Secretary of Agri steel workers will be able to re viously gone through the whole flat long before the 90 days culture Clinton P. Anderson cord at this convention the ost past decade of mighty labor “ tria l” is over. REPUDIATES E. L. HESTER said: “ We’re in the position of successful struggle and the battles without a direct test of Anderson is already finding Korean Labor Pleads For Aid greatest achievements of their a family that owns a litter of strength.

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