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VOL. V— No. 7. NEW YORK, N. Y., SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1941 >267 FIVE (5) CENTS KRIVITSKY MURDERED BY STALIN’S GPU GRACE CARLSON WALTER KRIVITSKY Why Krivitsky TOUR THIS WEEK "Suicide" Notes Branded Grace Carlson, now on a national speaking tour, will Forgeries By Friends Was Murdered speak in the following cities during the coming week. Those Named In "Letters" Call Them GPU Fabrications; Stalin's Regime Is In Mortal Crisis; PITTSBURGH: Friday, Feb. 14, at Moose Hall, 634 Penn Contents of "Letters" Are Utterly Unlike Krivitsky It Lashes About Like A Dying Monster Ave., 8:30 PM. on “ War and the Workers.” For the second time within a half year Stalin was able to BY THE EDITORS INDIANAPOLIS: Sunday, S’draw a black line through an important name in his list of sched­ The murder of W alter Krivitsky, the latest in the world­ Feb. 16, at 2:30 P.M. Third uled victims, when one of his GPU agents sent a .38 caliber wide series of assassinations perpetrated by the GPU, is a polit­ floor of Columbia Securities bullet crashing through the right temple of Walter Krivitsky ical murder. It can only be understood in the light of Stalin’s Bldg., Alabama and Ohio Sts., The List of last Monday. present critical situation, both foreign and domestic. on “The Right to Life.” The former head of the Soviet Intelligence Service in West­ Stalin is always motivated by considerations of personal ern Europe broke from Stalin in 1937 and wrote a series of vengeance. This alone, however, does not explain his insistence ST. LOUIS: Wednesday, GPU Victims articles exposing Stalin’s terror organization. on the murder of Krivitsky. Stalin has (not for the first time) Feb. 19, at Jeffla Halls, Jef­ On August 20 an agent of Stalin struck down Leon Trotsky transplanted to the Western hemisphere the naked terror of the ferson and Lafayette Ave., Is Very Long in Mexico C ity; K rivitsky, next on Stalin’s list, was slain on GPU primarily for political reasons. Room R, on “The Right to February 10 in a hotel room in the heart of Washington, D. C. The desperate nature of the crisis of Stalin’s regime drives Life.” No one heard the shot— perhaps a silencer was used and tak­ en away— in the fifth floor roonl of the Hotel Bellevue. A maid him to silence all opponents, not only inside but also outside his Complete schedule of Carl­ The Ki-ivitsky killing is the domain. third GPU assassination in entered the room with an ordin­ < son tour on page 2. ary pass key and discovered Kri- ginia, where he had gone to see The murders have had different immediate purposes. For rapid succession on this contin­ a friend, and had purchased a example, Abramovich, son of the Second International leader, was ent. It follows by less than six vitsky’s body on his blood-stained bed. The revolver lay beside him. pistol. He was planning to apply kidnapped in Spafn apparently as part of one of the many abor­ months the assassination of Leon Three notes were found in the for a permit in New York to tive attempts to add new “confessions” to the Moscow Trials. Trotsky, and by a little more carry the pistol. Why was it that than eight months the .killing in room. They appeared to be skill­ Andres Nin, POUM leader, was slaughtered in Spain because his the references to the Virginia Mexico last May of Trotsky’s ful forgeries of Krivitsky’s hand­ party’s criticism was, at that time, the only medium of anti- trip were limited to the post­ Fight Against War Is American secretary-guard, Rob­ writing, which is well known to scripts? Was it because only, at Stalinist thought within Spain. Ignace Reiss was machine-gunned ert Sheldon Harte. the expert professional forgers In" Switzerland as a dread warning to all others in Stalin’s em­ of the GPU. the last moment, jusK before the MASS MURDERS murder, did the GPU learn the ploy who- might decide to break with the GPU. These are but The notes, written on paper The Moscow Frameup Trials of details of the Virginia trip and three types of murders ordered by Stalin. with the printed head, “Charlot­ SW P Election Keynote August 1936, January 1937 and add them to the letters prepared tesville, Va.,” did not mention March 1938 “legalized” Stalin’s in advance? The Specific Motive mass murder of virtually all the the GPU or Stalin although they The note in English read as most prominent of Lenin’s col­ purported to be “suicide” notes. It is clear that Krivitsky’s case is similar in large part to Members Welcome Congressional Contest in N .Y .'s 17th District follows ; laborators. Among the victims Had Krivitsky really been driven that of Ig-nace Reiss. Krivitsky, had unquestioned authority as an “Dear Mr. Waldman: were Gregory Zinoviev, Nikolai to suicide by the hounding of the analyst of GPU methods. He had shown his political acumen by As Chance to Rally Workers Against Both Boss Parties “ My wife and my boy will need Bilkharin, L. B. Kamenev, Rykov, GPU which has followed him re­ his prediction, long before it happened, of the Stalin-Hitler pact. your help. Please do for them Pyatokov and Christian Rakov- lentlessly for four years and But he was not a political leader primarily. what you can. (signed) W A LT ­ sky, old Bolsheviks whose con­ made various previous attempts He was a menace to Stalin above all because as long as he A rthur Burch’s name w ill be on the ballot in the special ticians was hardly printable. That on his life, it was thought by all tributions to the Russian Revolu­ ER KRIVITSKY. Congressional election in the New York 17th District if human there was no way of saving the his friends, including his wife, he lived he symbolized the possibility of escaping from Stalin’s serv­ tion arc indelibly written into “P. S. I went; to Virginia be­ ice. As the crisis has deepened in the Soviet Union, many an flesh and blood can do it. world short of a sliillelah over would surely have mentioned this the heads of all the war-monger- worl d history. Simultaneous cause I knew there I can get a agent of Stalin has undoubtedly considered ways and means of That was made clear enough last Friday night at a city persecution. ing “leaders of the people.” That purges without the formality of gun. I f my friends should have membership meeting of Local New York of the Socialist Work­ breaking away. Krivitsky had done that successfully. Alive he it would take a revolution, no less, trial destroyed thousands upon POLICE BUNGLE any trouble please help them, remained a disintegrating influence on Stalin’s most important ers Party, where the branches hurled challenges back and forth to teach those up above to respect thousands of the Soviet’s best Washington police, according they did not know why I bought a m , the GPU. Dead by the hand of the GPU, he becomes a name at each other, running the fotal number of signatures they the ones below. Our comrade militants. The “trial” and exe­ to Louis Waldman, Krivitsky’s the gun.” to terrorize into submission all agents of Stalin. pledged to collect way beyond the 3,000 that the law requires on came away unharmed only be­ cution of the Red Arm y’s leading attorney, thoroughly bungled the The note in Russian was ad­ Stalin’s desperate need for such means of terrorization of the nominating petitions to place Comrade Burch on the ballot. cause he managed, finally, to ex­ eight generals was followed by case. While local police are gen­ dressed to his wife1 and son: a mass purge that decimated the his own “loyal” agents constitutes further proof of the character Petitions must be filed, by the plain our line and our program. erally in no way conversant with “Dear Tanya and Alek: Jews. They make up most of.the officer corps of the Red Army “It is very difficult but I want of a situation which demands such methods. Thus, all these murd­ end of February. The election is She swore that, if our party meant GPU methods, the case did ap­ 110,000 votes cast in that district and Navy. Equally widespread to live very badly. But it is im­ ers flow from one fact: the critical plight of the Stalin regime. March 11. what its principles declared, she pear to be especially badly in the last gubernatorial election. purges struck at the entire in­ possible. I love you, my only one. Quite a few of the "people who would be in the forefront Of every bungled. Police did not seal the That crisis did not begin yesterday. The contradiction be­ Heretofore, they got "their” voice dustrial and trade administration “It is difficult to write, but count” in New York live and vote fight we put up. room, they wrote on the police tween the economic, political and cultural needs of the Soviet in Congress from the snootier of the Soviet Union and of the think about me and you will un­ in the 17th Congressional district, Every signature-gathered re­ blotter that Krivitsky was alive Union, and the obstacle of the Bonapartist Kremlin, has been streets. governments of the various Sov­ derstand that I have to go. Don’t along Park and Madison Avenues. ports a deep and sullen disillu­ for two hours after he was dis­ developing for many years. It reached something of a climax in One of our young enthusiasts, iet Republics. tell Alek yet where his father is Their man Usually goes to Con­ sionment with both Republicans covered— his head was blown out the desperate Moscow Frameup Trials and the monstrous purges using the “soft” approach, found TROTSKY FAMILY going. I ’ believe that in time you gress. and Democrats. on the right side— they made no of 1936-38. All that went before was, however, but the beginning. himself backed into a corner by We '’don't have to agitate today DESTROYED search for finger prints until will tell him, because it will be The crisis reached an entirely new stage under the impact of the But in the same 17th District, an enraged Irishwoman who set. about the political unity of the In 1928, after expelling Trot­ whatever prints might have been best for him. Forgive, it is very war and, in particular, the consequences of the Finnish invasion crowded along the less illustrious upon him before he could indicate ruling ciass nor its conspiracy to sky from the-Soviet Union, Stalin left were completely obliterated hard to write. Take care of him avenues, huddled together in the his independence of the two old which, as Trotsky forecast before he was murdered by the GPU, drag the American workers into began his vengeful destruction of by the finger prints of the police and be a good mother to him tenements, are the workers parties. She made clear to him, and be always quiet and never mark the beginning of tho end for Stalin. war. Today we talk about the Trotsky’s family. In June, 1928 themselves. Possible finger prints —an American melting-pot of Ir ­ in plain language indead, that, her program of working-class unity Trotsky’s daughter, Nina, denied on the gun were declared by the get angry at him.’ He is very (Continued on Page 4) ish, Italians, Negroes, Greeks, opinion of both sets of filthy poli­ against capitalist oppression. (Continued on Page 3) police to- have been wiped out by good and always very pale. Good blood stains. people will help you, but not Since the time of his break enemies. I think my sins are big. with Stalin, Krivitsky had ex­ I see you, Tanya and Alek.’ I em­ pected death at the hands of the brace you. GPU Forged Letters Like Krivitsky’s Before GPU. He envisaged the possibil­ “Yours, ity of their attempting to make “VELLA. it appear suicide and warned: “P. S. On tho farm of Dobertov “If they ever try to prove that I By LYDIA BEIDEL suicide lone is adhered to with ment, secretary of the Bureau of to play safe by using all of them. to Virginia to get it arc handled A NEW BLUNDER I wrote this yesterday, but I did The Krivitsky murder exhibits religious care. the Fourth International. Six Their error lay in using the old­ as an after-thought, even in the BY THE GPU took my own life, don’t believe not have any strength in New it.” the stereotype of the GPU crime. It was because of glaring dis­ weeks after the letter, allegedly est and most completely abandon­ letter to his wife. Were the bodies The most incriminating cir­ York. I did not have any business A t the time Trotsky was mur­ Unhappily for Stalinism, the pat­ crepancies in historical fact and written aud sent in explanation ed (Frederic) in the letter which of the letters composed in the cumstance, however, centers in Washington. I went to see dered, Krivitsky told the press tern of circumstances surrounding inconsistencies in philosophy and of Klement’s “break with Trotsky” was sent to Trotsky. mood of imminent suicide some­ around the absolute absence in Dobertov, because th at is the %ach of its major political mur­ motivation, that the patent false­ the dismembered body of the where else and some time ago, any of these letters of mention that he was “next on the list.” only place I could get the fire­ ders has a glaring and betraying SUSPICIOUS ASPECTS OF * arms.” ness of previous "letters of con­ "writer" of the letter was found whereas the specific details of his of the GPU or any of its agents. GPU KILLER HERE flaw, with which, hojvevcr, it can­ THE KRIVITSKY LETTERS The note in German was ad­ fession” were proven. in the Seine river. last trip had to 'w a it until the The fact of his leaving a note Mrs. Krivitsky revealed that a not dispense: a written document. In the case of Krivitsky, too, dressed to Suzanne LaFollette: The implications of the letter When the Klement letter was propitious moment and then be to his wife would indicate, pres­ professional killer of the GPU The necessity for casting suspi­ three letters have been left, sign­ “Dear Suzanne: of Jacson, GPU killer of Trotsky, first received—before Klement’s added by the murderers? umably, that he felt moved to vin­ had been seen in New York, one cion elsewhere than upon Us own ed in three ways: Walter K riv it- “I trust that you are well, and have been admirably and thor­ body was found—its existence aud A reading of the two more im­ dicate himself somehow for an Hans Bruessc, one of the men bloody head has, forced it in each sky for the English letter; Vella I am dying with the hope that oughly treated in a pamphlet by content seemed entirely inexpli­ portant of the Krivitsky “suicide” act which he knew was to bring who, together with GPU agent instance to produce documentary for the Russian: and W alter for you will help Tanya and my poor Albert Goldman entitled The As­ cable. The handwriting appeared notes brings several questions to her intense grief. He had a moral Gertrude Shildbach, machine- evidence of some other perpetra­ the German. There is only one boy. You were a friend. sassination. of Leon Trotsky, now authentic, even at first to the mind: Why the brevity of the note alibi if ever a man did: his per­ gunned Ignace Reiss, former as­ tor of the act. That is why, in explanation for this: a desperate “Yours, W ALTER. [available through the editorial of- keen eye of Trotsky himself. Then to his lawyer? Krivitsky was sup­ secution by the GPU and the Stal­ sociate of Krivitsky in the GPU, every case, a letter or several let­ attempt to make these letters look j lices of THE MILITANT. We it became clear that an extremely posedly voluntarily terminating a inist. parties of France, Switzer­ on a lonely road near Lausanne, “P. S. I also think about your ters appear as "explanations” of intimate, legitimate and valid. In ­ therefore content ourselves with clever case of forgery had been political life; his lawyer is a pn> land and the United States. Yet Switzerland, on Sept. 4, 1937. brother and Dorothy.” the death or disappearance of the cidentally, the writing of a Ger­ only one observation in respect to \ perpetrated, later substantiated as mineut co-thinker of his in the not a word, even of pathetic com­ French and Swiss court inves­ victim. man letter to Suzanne LaFollette LA FO LLETTE ’S VIEW S the murder of Leon Trotsky. The a forgery by the investigation of labor movement; Krivitsky surely plaint, against bis having been tigations established that, it was In two major murders preced­ is a minor mystery in itself, es­ In an interview with TH E mistakes of that Jacson letter 'handwriting experts in Paris. would have had something more subjected for years to incessant these GPU agehts who had mur­ ing that of Krivitsky—the assas­ pecially since the victim proves M IL IT A N T , Suzanne LaFollette seem to have taught the crime- Krivitsky’s lawyer has with great to say as a final word to such a terror and hounding, appears in dered Reiss in retaliation for his sination of Leon Trotsky and the his command of English in the declared the note addressed to sodden minds of the GPU one justification raised doubts as to confidant than the simple words any of the letters. In its recently breaking from Stalin and declar­ murder of Rudolf Element, secre­ much longer and more complicated her, as well as the other two, as thing at least: to-avoid delving the authenticity of the handwrit­ about his family—and again as acquired and legitimate fettr of ing for the Fourth International. tary of the Fourth International, letter to his lawyer. The GPU being utterly unlike Krivitsky’s into the political ideas of their ing in the letters found beside in the other letters—the postscript political angles to its murder let­ on July 13, 1938. the technique handwriting artists appear to style. "She found particularly in­ tools or victims in their letter­ Krivitsky. about the purchase of the gun. ters, the K rem lin has bent so fa r FORGED “LETTERS” of the “letter of confession” has have been (letermined to show dicative of the GPU authorship writing exploits. There were three copies of the Why the tone of the letter to backward that it has fallen once The three “letters” found be­ been used, each time to the Klement letter prepared by its their versatility! his wife? He offers her no single more! side Krivitsky were one in Eng­ of the notes the following points: grief of Stalin. SAME GPU METHODS authors, each one signed with an­ It seems to go beyond the point word of explanation save the silly A final highly significant par­ lish, another in Russian, the 1. The phrase “I think my sins The latest use of the letter has USED ON ELEMENT other of the pseudonyms Klement of accident that the elements of phrase, “I think my sins are big,” allel between the GPU murder of third in German. Each one, are big.” Krivitsky was a man shown only one sign of improve­ An examination of the letters had used in his political work. each of the letters which couldi a phrase entirely foreign to the Rudolph Klement and the violent strangely enough, had a post­ to whom such a thought was ab­ ment over the clumsy method forged by the GPU and left as One bore the signature Frederic; be written only at the precise mo­ tongue of a man engaged as he end of Walter Krivitsky appears script, apparently written some solutely alien. “ What this phrase Krivitsky’s shows an amazing another, Adolf; and the third, Ca­ ment of the crime appear not in really is,said Miss LaFollette, employed heretofore. This time, had been in the conscienceless in­ in the handling of their personal time after the letters. Only in similarity in important details to mille. Since the GPU had no way the bodies of the letters but in trigue of Stalinist politics for de­ affairs in the final hours of their the postscripts were there spe­ “is the usual GPU ‘repentance’ politics and international intri­ a similar letter forged by the of knowing which was currently postscripts. The acquisition of cades until his break with the lives. In this connection, the mys- cific references to the circum­ formula. All the victims in the gue are carefully avoided and the GPU when it killed Rudolf Ele­ used by their victim, they tried a gun and his trip all the way Kremlin late in 1937. (Continued on page 3.) stances of Krivitsky’s trip to V ir­ (Continued on Page 3) 2 THE MILITANT — FEBRUARY 15, 1941 Ten Workers Die In Fire-Swept "National Defense" Factory I poor boys and men were offerings By CARL O’SHEA | to the greedy god of boss PROFIT Was A Fire-Trap Because Boss Wouldn't Spend a Few Dollars; and the negligence of boss poli­ The AFL dual union, the Amer-i* Hlian three weeks, and that they ican Editorial Association, boasts are broke, thousands of families W rite to us—tell us what’s going on in your part of the ticians. City and Federal Authorities Closed Their Eyes to Bad Conditions that Anthony Berardi, one of the have no water. Only source of labor movement—what are the workers thinking aboutf—tell Wasn’t it to Make Profits international vice-presidents of the water is from friendly residents us what the bosses are up to—and the G-men and the local cops— ■ .. . .that the bosses refused to call CIO American Newspaper Guild, in the area who as yet have not and the Stalinists—send us that story the capitalist press didn’t NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 5—Ten workers today paid profits to he gained from huge the Fire Department until it lias quit the guild and joined the suffered the shut-off fate. In was too lale. because the fire­ Chicago local of the Editorial As­ print and that story they buried or distorted— our pages are open with their lives for the greed of the bosses, as flames destroyed war orders produced under the many homes, influenza and other to you. Letters must carry name and address, but indicate i f you cheapest—and most dangerous— men might damage the cot­ sociation. Chalk up another blabk sickness is gaining headway. Mrst do not want your name printed. them in the flim sy (iretrap factory building of the New Haven conditions. ton? mark to the AFL for trying to Odell Crowley, one. tenant, said Quilt and Pad Company here. But ten workers’ families today ... .that the bosses failed to build create a dual union in an indus­ that “We have managed to get are counting their losses in more a rear stairway exit which try dominated by the CIO Guild. enough water to drink, but hardly The report announcing the gov­ Three other workers were seriously injured when they “ One-Third III- than dollars and cents. The bosses could have saved the men? If Guild members don’t like the enough for bathing and to flush ernment puchase also stated that jumped from a third floor window,to the ground below, unable can1 build a new fire-trap factory ___that they failed to install ex­ Stalinist policies of the Guild the toilet regularly.” Restaurants HousedWill Stay “this is part of the government’s to escape by any other way because the fire escape was blocked from their profits. But toil haust fans to draw off the leadership, the place to work to and cafes in the area, many of plan for more extensive defense That Way fathers, sons and husbands will lint in tile air (which made the change those policies is INSIDE them without water, continue to utilization of USHA projects now by huge blazing bales of cotton and the only other exit, a lire never be replaced. rapid Spread of the fire cer­ the Guild. serve patrons under conditions nearing completion.” It is well- door, had been ordered qlosed by the factory superintendent to While the “Register” and “Jour­ tain) ? * * * that make sanitation practically Editor: known that the insignificant num­ prevent spread of the flames, despite the fact that these thirteen nal Courier” (New Haven’s duly impossible. Baths in the area have A newly completed project in ber of housing projects already ___that they shut off the Sprink­ The AFL Washington Slate LA­ two papers, both owned by John become a rare luxury. Greedy South Boston, built under the lo­ built ahd under construction hard­ wm-kers were still stm in the third ler system, because the water BOR NEWS reports that a Sen­ with an iron bar, the ten trapped Day Jackson, multi-millioliaire merchants in the area who still cal Housing Authority, has recent­ ly touched the problem of housing floor back room where the fire Wouid injure the cloth? ator Roberts has introduced a bill workers Were already doomed. arid controller of both Democratic have running water are taking ly been purchased by the govern­ the adinitted one-third who are began. Equally responsible are the off! to foist a $5 poll tax on voters Workers who managed to es­ ahd Republican parties here) have advantage of the Negro families ment for housing of “national de­ “ill-housed” in this cotintry. Now The factory has been working cials of the Fire Dept., the Build of the state of Washington. If fense" workers. This means that cape have testified that after thS begun to write that the coroner by asking sums from $2 id $5 per even these a re to be taken away night and day on an Army order ing Dept., and the State Dept, of American “democracy” continues fire had started, foremen refused finds no criminal negligence, the month for supplying water by the hundreds of families now living and handed over to government for 578,000 comforters for the new Labor, all of whom knew of these to spread at this rate, 1 lie time Co call the fire department for Socialist Workers Party of New pailful to families. Conscienceless in sub-standard homes with ina­ employes comparatively well able conscript army. Most of these conditions anti that the place was will shortly come when only the fear some of the quilts might be Haven distributed a leaflet, pin­ landlords are battening on the dequate light, heat and sanitary to pay market rents for standard comforters have already been de­ a fire trap! . . . employers can vote. damaged by water. One Worker ning responsibility where it be­ housing shortage by “pulling facilities, are to remain in these housing, i livered to the Army. stated, as quoted in the New Ha­ * ® * Unhealthy places although they The fire first broke out, investi­ longs, on the bosses and their Resolve Today down the protective boarding of I would like to mention that the ven Evening Register today, “The had already beeii notified that they gators believe, when sparks from stooges, the local and state poli­ .... to form unions—strong fight­ The CO-OPERATIVE BUILD­ condemned and abandoned houses, problem of housing "defense work­ only time the firemen were called were to move into the new pro­ a machine used for picking for­ ticians. The leaflet said in part: ing unions — which would ER, weekly paper of the Northerh splashing on a thiii coat of paint, ers” does exist, and that landlords was when they coYildn’t control ject April 1st. Many had given eign substances out of cotton We extend our' deepest sym­ force the bosses to install States Co-op League, carries news and asking from $25 to $40 per have taken great advantage of the it. They figured if the firertien notice to their landlords. The ignited the exposed and highly in­ pathy td the relatives and friends fireproof equipment and pro­ of growing protest among Cana­ month for five and six rooms . . . workers who must be concentrated come, they throw too much water need-for a liousing project in this flammable cotton hales near the of the ten workers who were tection. dian farmers against the govern­ and getting it !” in a small area in order to get and ruin the quilts.” particular section of Boston is so machine. burned to deatli in the New Haven ___to form a Labor Party in New ment’s action in pegging produce jobs in defense plants. However, A plant engineer has admitted * * * blatant that civil groups composed Cotton bales in front of the fire Quilt Company fire Wednesday Haven, based On the unions prices. On January 10th some as hard a problem as it is for that a two inch pipe which was of church officials and the like escape exit flamed up almost in­ morning. which would sweep these in­ 2.000 angry farmers met in Lon­ Upton Sinclair is a nice enough supposed to carry water to the have been working for years to these workers, and I know' this stantaneously throwing a huge Our sorrow makes it all the different and Inefficient poli­ don, Ontario, to demand that the guy in between wars. But today open cotton bales and soak them get such a project. And now the from personal experience, it is wall of fire between the trapped more necessary to state that these ticians out of office. Dominion government “be fair to he is again beating the war drums, down to prevent them from catch­ ■only sop the authorities give the workers and the fire escape. agriculture in administering the just as he did in World War I. nothing in comparison w’lth that ing fire from static electricity was workers in this area is a state­ After several workers had es­ war burden.” The farmers charged In a recent issue of the NEW of families trying to live on much shut off. Although aWafe of the ment that another project will be caped through the only other exit, “that the government has fixed LEADER he goes Roosevelt one lower incomes. fire menace from electric sparks,- ■ built for them and perhaps in an-1 the fire door, the superintendent the maximum price of butter at better in anticipating a Nazi in­ there was no grounding device to Hudson Men Penalized other five or ten years it may Boston, Mass. ordered the door shut, cutting off three to four cents below current vasion of the United States. Just prevent this menace. be ready for occupancy. B. W ISE all- possible chance of’ escape. market prices, at a time when as in 1918, he paints a cozy lying picture of what the war alms of WHITEWASH INDICATED By Reuther and Thomas the farmer’s price for butterfa: ORDERED TO STAY the “democracies” are. Listen to Shortly after the fire was fin­ is still low in comparison with The doomed men might have him: "We have to make plain to ally subdued, four separate investi­ his rising war-time costs, of pro­ escaped in the initial moments DETROIT, Mich., Feb. 10. the totalitarian powers that de­ gations of the cause of the fire erated or so lightly punished. Any duction. Bacon prices are also too TwinCities Banquet after the' fire broke out, but they mocracy does not permit them to were announced. The FBI, the Ar- The UAW'-CIO International Ex­ future similar situations will sub­ low. the farmers charged. Efforts had remained on the orders of destroy democratic Britain, or to my.x Quartermasters Office, the ecutive Board showed the world ject the participants to summary of Minister of Agriculture Gar­ a foreman to attempt to save the how far from the path of union­ hold the people they have con­ Municipal Detective Bureau and dismissal if guilty and they will diner to defend his actions failed bales of cotton. In less than five quered . . . We ought to exact Its ‘Militant' Pluggers the local "Fire Marshall’s office ism they have been pushed by the receive no protection from the to appease the farmers. minutes the work room was a war scare, when they issued a pledges in advance from Britain have all announced probes. union.” * * $ howling furnace, so quickly did that she will join with us at the Just what these “probes” will statement signed by R. J. Thomas This is the second open and The Summit County LABOR MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The ‘ups.’ 1 particularly recall distri­ the flames rage among the piles and Richard Frankensteen, eon- conclusion of the war, to form probably amount to is indicated flagrant Incident in which the NEWS for January 31 reports new six-page M ILITA N T was buting our paper to the meeting of exposed cotton and quilting. dfemning “mob tactics, wildcat a federation of states, to guaran­ by a statement of the County Executive Board members of the that the Goodyear Local of the greeted Feb. 6 at a banquet at­ of the Farmers Union in St. Paul, One worker, who had escaped strikes, stoppages etc.” and apolo­ tee freedom and, independence to Coronet-, Jarries J. Corrigan, that UAW have sided with the com­ Rubber Workers has served de­ tended by about 75 comrades of how the farmers stood in line to through the fire door before it all peoples, and to make it forever an investigation of "sabotage” is gizing to a Hudson Motor com­ pany in disciplining a group of mands on the company for a gen­ the Minneapolis and St. Paul get copies, and told me ‘Good was shut, pleaded with the fore­ impossible for this horror to befall being pushed. pany foreman who was allegedly union militants. In the Fisher eral 10% hourly wage increase, branches. The inner-party banquet work, young lady. This is MY man to open the door telling him the world again. We must not The War Department must cer­ thrown out of the plant by a Body situation in Flint, 17 men and an upward adjustment of honored those comrades who sell paper.’ For several years I have that there were workers trapped only form a world government, tainly have known what kind of “mob” of union men. were thrown out of the pljnt, de­ piecework rates considered by the arid distribute our press and thus been distributing our paper at the in the room. The foreman- re­ but join it and make it work, as a firetrap this plant was. It knew The union officers agreed to prived of all seniority, and( of union to be out'of line with pres­ make possible the growth and in­ meeting of the Building Laborers buked him for “spreading ru­ our forefathers did with our own what the conditions were in which punishment of a group of Hudson their union rights, in just such ent living costs. Negotiations are fluence of our press and qur party. Union. At first they would read mors.” federal Union. We have to set up the workers worked. And any Workers, accused of throwing1 the a dirty agreement between the now under way. Comrade I^e, master-of-ceretho- our paper, warning them of the The building was an obvious a world police force," etc. too close a probe might rebound foreman out of the building, and cbmpahy and the Board. nies, opened the banquet by saying approaching war, and scoff, asking fire trap. It was condemned about * * * to the discredit of the War De­ the company has laid them off for Sinclair came out in 1918 with “ We greet the 6-page M ILITA N T me how ‘your war’ is coming three months ago, it is reported; These incidents indicate how The tragic plight of nearly 3,000 partment, and show the kind of from four to six months without tlic same set of blue-prints for as a step toward a twice-weekly along. Then the war started. and three insurance companies quickly and easily these leaders residents in the 11th Ward sec­ conditions the government is tol­ pay. a world government, even doWn and then a daily. And we pay our They smile when we described had refused to accept insurance capitulate tb the pressure of the tor of Cleveland. Ohio, site of a erating in the manufacture of As if this is not severe enough to plans for a building at Geneva respects to those who so faithfully the United States as the leading policies on it. “National Defense” hysteria, and new low-rent housing project, is war orders. for union militants who dare to to house the government. But see that our paper gets into the imperialist power and predicted the whole war situation. exposed by the Cleveland CALL SPRINKLERS SHUT OFF The ten bodies of the burned take action, Thomas and Franken­ Wilson, Lloyd George and Poin­ hands of hundreds of workers this nation, too, would be Involv­ POST, Negro weekly. Residents There was an antiquated sprink­ workers were recovered late to­ steen go on: “The union hereby The Communist Party elements care didn’t listen. God only knows each week.” ed. But now they are friendly, of the slum area face the double ler system in the burned building, night, charred beyond recognition. serves notice to all employees for in the UAW also show no Courage wliy Sinclair believes that his Uto­ they are serious about our party dilemma Of wholesale water shut­ but- workers from the first floor Two bodies were found near the the future that any recurrence of or will to fight this kind of fla­ pian plan will fare any better in PARTY PRESS HISTORY and our paper, and they recogn:ze offs and eviction. Approximately who rushed to the basement to closed fire door, two at the rear similar situations will not be tol­ grant union ’busting tactic. the hands of Roosevelt and Comrade Riley told of the his­ me .and are eager to get copies 3.000 sub-standard living units ars of the room, and four near the Churchill. But Sinclair always tory of the party press. As he of the paper, and greet me on the turn it on, found that, not only being abolished and the tenants was the system shut off, but -tlie blocked fire-escape. could believe more in five minutei spoke, he called attention to a street." evicted, without considering the The entire plant was gutted at that a normal man could in t display of party papers/ from the main valve had been sealed. By fact that there is not one-fiftli an estimated loss of $50,000, a lifetime. old Militant, beginning Nov. 15, BEGAN AS 8-YEAR OLD * the time six frantically working that amount of living units any­ 1938, the New Militant, the New Comrade Stone of Minneapolis men could force open the valve mere trifle compared with the Queens Workers where available in the city. The * # ❖ International, the Socialist Call, spoke next and told how he start­ City Water Department is turning Officials of the Iowa State Fed the Socialist Appeal, Labor Action, ed in at an early age as a so­ off water as fast as the property eration of Labor are sendin| to the FOURTH INTERNATIO N­ cialist propagandist. "When I owners sell their property. There throughout the nation appeals for AL and the M ILIT A N T. His was eight,years old, I used to is an ordinance that permits the support of the Des Moines Build­ stories of the tremendous sacri­ have a paper route. A socialist in Make New Gains Water Department to demand six ing Trades Council’s stand not fices made by the Left Opposition­ the neighborhood, John Ryan, used UAW Asks Ford months payment in advance to to permit union workers to Work ists in the early years to get out to get a bundle of socialist papers. By the Queens Correspondent turn the water on. Inasmuch as on war projects done under WPA, the paper were moving. He was a tired radical and used weakens bargaining power. There QUEENS, New York City—The tenants are legally not permitted the Des Moines FEDERATION- Humorously he recalled that to get us boys to pass his papers is growing sentiment among the workers of the Pepsi-Cola Com­ to remain in the property for more IST for January 2nd reports. period when the Trotskyists en­ out. I remember many times be­ employes here for united action To Negotiate pany, organized under the juris­ of all workers in the plant such tered the Socialist Party and we ing chased and hollered at by ir­ had to depend upon the innocuous ate citizens. Why didn’t people diction of the International Asso­ as brought the workers at Anchor Socialist Call for a few months, who understood socialism distri­ ciation of Machinists, have suc­ Cap and Pepsi-Cola major gains. ceeded in obtaining important with its writings by Norman Tho­ bute the paper, so that they could Ford Says No And It's the Union's Move; gains in a new contract signed mas and the Reverend Roy Burt. answer questions, I thought? by the bosses. “I’m thankful that the Militant “The first time I delivered our Union Drive At Peak; It's Now Or Never The new contract continues the and New Militant never had to own paper, I read it through five 8-liour day, 40-hours a week with SCHEDULE OF disgrace its columns with such times so I wouldn’t be stumped, time and a half for overtime. scribbling,” he said. He also so I could answer all the ques­ DETROIT, Mich., Feb. 7.— R. J. decisive action at Ford. There is Overtime in excess of two hours traced the history of our theore­ tions that I might be asked. Every Thomas, UAW President, and M i­ no other alternative. But in spite and Sun-day and holiday work CARLSON TOUR tical organ, told, of how last April week I ask about five people for chael F. Widman, director of the of the Ford company's arrogant will be paid at the rate of double it was “filched from us by the subs. I try to be as regular as Ford drive of the CIO, today de­ refusal to sit down and negotiate time. The union gained a $2 in­ 'Fri. Feb. 14 Pittsburgh MINNESOTA DOUBLE- ring in Pennsylvania. (Confiden­ porch-climbers” and how the possible, because that makes an manded an immediate conference demands, tlie.C-0 ler. >rship, un­ crease per week. Wage rates are Sat. Feb. 15 ------. CHALLENGES N.Y. tially, we look to that state to FOURTH INTERNATIONAL was impression On people too.” with Ford Company officials this der Widman, lias not taken se. ldus raised to $23 minimum for Wom­ Sun. Feb. 16 Indianapolis The telegraph wires are buz­ play the dark horse in this fade, established. week to bargain on several union steps in preparation for action. SUB DRIVE LAUNCHED en and $30-34 for men. All em­ Mon. Feb. 17 Indianapolis zing furiously with those Min- Come on ... you Quaker Bol­ demands. There have been no liu.e mass Tues. Feb. 18 ------nesota-New York challenges sheviks!) PLANTING THE SEEDS “The bundle of pkpers that used In a letter to Ford, which asked meetings called to raise the morale ployes receive eleven legal paid to come to our headquarters Was holidays with pay and a week’s Wed. Feb. 19 St. Louis again. This time it’s the SUB Comrade Jones, in his talk on for the collective bargaining con­ of the Ford workers to the heights SCORE-BOARD small,” Comrade BebgersOn, liter vacation for those employed a ThurS. Feb. 20 ------DRIVE in which our ace com­ the party press, pointed out the ference “in order to avoid any ne­ necessary for action: no broad ON SUBS TO DATE year, two weeks for those em­ Fri. Feb. 21 Memphis petitors are preparing to lead the uhique nature of the banquet: that ature agent In Minneapolis, remin­ cessity for a strike.” Thomas and bargaining committee has been The readers of THE M ILI­ ployed for two years or mote. Sat. Feb. 22 ------party over tne top. it was the first party banquet de­ isced. “It Was easy to get intc Widman demanded a working elected; there are no strike kitch­ TANT will not object, we are Seniority l-ights are guaranteed. Sun. Feb. 23 Arkansas Here is the latest taunt, from voted solely to otir press ahd to the headquarters, but we had a agreement to establish collective ens in preparation, no real plans sure, to the inclusion of FOURTH The workers at Pepsi-Cola ascribe Mon. Feb. 24 Arkansas Minneapolis: “ READING NEW the group of comrades “who, with bard time getting it out.. Now it’s bargaining in Ford, a ten percent that can be seen. INTERNATIONAL subscriptions their victory to the solid front Tues. Feb. 25 Texas YORK CHALLENGE OF 250 fine understanding and spirit have hard getting the big bundle intc general wage increase, seniority in the ‘ARMY’ scoreboard during^ FORD WORKERS READY Wed. Feb. 26 Texas SUBS IN MEETING TONIGHT contributed to the development of headquarters bUt easy getting it rights, time and a half for Satur­ they presented against the com­ the period of the special sub That the Ford workers would pany in negotiations. Thurs. Feb. 27 MET WITH LAUGHTER. MIN­ the grand ideas of Marx, Engels, out. This is due primarily to the day and double time for Sunday drive, since these will count along rally courageously to a program to Thurs. Mar. 13 ------NESOTA PLEDGES 500 SUBS Lehirt and our recently murdered good work of the fourteen com­ work. Their statement reflected At the Anchor Cap Company, with regular MILITANT and of action is testified to by the which manufactures bottle caps, Fri. March 14 Los Angeles BY APRIL 1st.” We find it pos­ Old Man. It is given to the com­ rades honored tonight.” the enormous pressure put on the special Combination subs in the fact that they have poured Into Sat. March 15 and vicinity sible to say only one thing: quote rades we honor tonight to take He outlined the subscription leadership by the surging ranks the workers, likewise members or final reckoning. To date the score the UAW by the thousands. Sun. March 16 YIPPEE! Unquote. the printed word of our movement drive for the M ILITA N T and the of the Ford Workers who have the IAM. are preparing to nego­ is as follows: to hundreds and thousands of FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, and But ihstead of depending upon tiate with the company for re­ Mon. March 17 CHALLENGES .FLYING been flocking into the UAW by City Subs Points workers who, tomorrow and the displayed the post cards listing this rank and file strength to es- newal of the contract which they Tues. March 18 ” THICK AND FAST the thousands. Wed. March 19 ” Coast-to-coast challenges to New York 8 12 next day, will be part of the van­ the combination sub offer. The Ford’s answer to this demand 1 tabllsh unionism in the Ford em­ gained last spring through strike action. In view of the unity be­ Thurs. March 20 date in the sub drive are as fol­ Detroit 6 13 guard that will overturn this rot­ 'Minneapolis branch is to be divid was a flat and categorical “NO.” pire, Widman and Thomas are try­ tween production workers and Fri. March 21 ------lows : New Haven 4 4 ten brutal capitalist system and ed into five teams which will com­ Ford’s spokesman said "the com­ ing to find some way of achieving usher in a decent and humane or­ pete against one another, the win­ unionism through governmental machinists they do not expect the Sat. March 22 San Francisc< Callenger Defender Chicago 3 8 pany will not take the trouble to Sun. March 23 New Haven — Rochester Newark 3 3 der.” ning team to be honored at a ban reply to the union.” pressure— NLRB complaints, etc. trouble they had last spring when The highlight of the evening quet in April. the company refused to concede Mon. March 24 ” Flint — Youngstown Minneapolis 2 9 While this kind of stupid man­ was the presentation of the four'- Following an inspiring discus­ NOW W HAT? an increase in pay, paid vacations, Tues. March 25 Boston — Chicago Los Angeles 2 4 euvering goes on, the peak of the teen most devoted press distribu­ sion, a motion from the floor car­ This leaves the union flatfooted seniority rights, and immediate Wed. March 26 (Chicago Milwaukee 2 2 unionization drive at Ford has al­ tors to the banqueters, and the ried that the Twin Cities set a without any recourse except to discussion of grievances until mil­ Thurs. March 27 ” Detroit —(Boston ,f5t. Paul 1 3 ready been reached. Ford’s dis­ response two of the distributors quota of 500 subs and - challenge prepare for strike action. This is itant picket lines convinced the Fri. March 28 —------(Newark Plentywood 1 2 crimination against hundreds of made to the chairman and the New York on that basis. The about the third time i in recent bosses a change in policy was In Sat. March 29 ------(Boston Cleveland 1 2 union members has not been coun­ other comrades. motion carried unanimously. A weeks that Ford has told the un­ Order. Sun. March 30 Portland Chicago —(Detroit Kansas 1 2 teracted by any decisive union Comrade Stanley of St. Paul, telegram was sent forthwith to ion to go plumb to hell. Each time At the Lily Tulip Cup Company Mon. March 31 ------(Newark action. Ford men, who joined the one of the best press salesmen, New York: “Reading of challenge Thomas and Widman bob tip in College Point, Long Island, the Tues. April 1 Seattle Rochester — New Haven TOTAL 34 Subs union with great hope, are begin­ said: “Distributing our party for 250 subs met with laughter. again, and go through the whole workers face a more difficult prob­ Wed. April 2 ------(Chicago (Points are given in recognition ning to lose their spirit. press has its ups ahd downs. The Minnesota challenges New Yoi-k business again of demanding a lem. Here the production Workers Thurs April 3 ------Newark (Boston of the amounts of money sent in, cold nights and the abuse of un­ to 500 subs by April 1st.” collective bargaining meeting with There is not a minute to lose belong to the Printing Pressmen, Fri. April 4 Plentywood Milwaukee — Texas since special combination subs friendly people are definitely the the company, only to be received if the Ford drive is not to be al­ an AFL craft outfit, while the Sat. April 5 Williston Minnesota — New York yield only half-a-dollar each to ‘downs.’ The friendly words of each time with greater scorn. lowed to fizzle out, and if Ameri­ machinists belong to Local 295 of Sund. April 6 ------Any day now we should be the one, two or three dollars of sympathetic workers and the re­ The UAW is faced with the im­ can labor is not to lose the great­ the IAM. Some concessions have Mon. April 7 Fargo hearing from the west coast, and regular subs. However, competi­ quests for copies of the paper by mediate necessity of arousing and est chance it has ever had to been obtained from the company, Tues. April 8 ” the rest of the auto centers. Also tion is still on the basis of quan­ union men and women are the organizing the rank and file for break the open shop at Ford. but the split in ranks seriously Wed. April 9 Twin Cities we understand things are stir­ tity of subs ...) FEBRUARY 15, 1941 — T H E MILITANT 3 How Stalin Murdered Trotsky Krivitsky Slain Jacson And The Mexican Stalinists Who Made Earlier Attempt Are Now On Trial By Stalin’s GPU

(Continued from Page 1) tioning his name in a letter which By JOSEPH HANSEN electric saws, and When they When Jacson was searched by Moscow Frameup Trials have sim­ would automatically become pub­ The murder of General Walter abandoned the automobiles they the police they found in his pock­ ilar phrases put in their mouths. lic.” Krivitsky by Stalin’s GPU, recalls stole from Trotsky’s garage, they et a “confession.” This document Although, having burned their “This was no suicide,” conclud­ the machine gun assault organized left in them some of the police was apparently written for the fingers with the Jacson ‘confes­ ed Miss LaFollette. “It was mur­ by GPU gunmen on Trotsky's bed­ uniforms they had used as dis­ eventuality that Jacson might not sion’, which tried to justify Stal­ der, murder at the hands of the room on May 24, 1910, and their guises in order to surprise the succeed in escaping and would be in, the GPU did not dare put into GPU.” assassination of Trotsky on Au­ police. killed by the, guards after com­ the Krivitsky ‘letters’ direct ref­ gust 20 last year. mitting the murder. Unfortunate­ erence to Stalin, the GPU still W A SH IN G TO N ’S SILENCE TRAIL LEADS TO ly for Stalin, his agent was could not resist making Krivitsky There is obvtbus resistance In the machine gun assault Ro­ COMMUNIST PARTY bert Sheldon Harte, secretary seized alive. The “confession” ‘repent’ for his fight against Stal­ from Washington officials to any Checking of the uniforms led praised Stalin as being “correct” in. This phrase is as good as further investigation into the guard on duty was kidnapped and directly to the Communist Party. murdered. His body was found a and repeated many phrases con­ Stalin’s signature to this crime.” death of Krivitsky. State Depart­ The police proved that David cerning alleged connections be­ 2. “In the letter addressed to ment policy at present is to month later in a shallow grave Serrano, member of the Central tween Trotsky and the Dies Com­ his wife, she is urged always to wheedle Stalin into some form lined with lime. Whereas Kriv­ Committee of the Mexican Com­ mittee and W all Street which be quiet and never get angry of collaboration, at least in the itsky was killed witji one shot in munist Party, had ordered certain might have been lifted without with their seven-year old son. Far East. That means cohstant the temple from a .38 caliber pis­ members of the Communist Party a single change out of the Stal­ Krivitsky never would have w rit­ dealing with Ambassador Ou­ tol, Harte was shot twice, once to obtain these uniforms. inist press. It also claimed that ten this, knowing she .had never mansky— and Oumansky, Trotsky at the base of the brain, and once Further investigation along these Trotsky had ordered Jacson to go been otherwise toward the boy.” said, is the real head of the GPU in the temple. The pistol was the lines brought the arrest of two to Shanghai, fly to Russia, and 3. In the letter to Waldman, apparatus on this continent. same caliber as the one used to women Stalinists who had been there commence sabotage and at­ the signature is “Walter Krivit­ It will be recalled that a sim­ kill Krivitsky. delegated by the GPU to seduce tempts against the lives of Sov­ sky.” But Krivitsky never signed ilar official wall of silence and Leon and Natalia Trotsky escap­ the police guard stationed at the iet leaders. such letters other than ■ “Krivit­ buck passing occurred in France, ed death on May 24 only by acci­ Trotsky house and to act as spies. When he was questioned in sky” alone. where the GPU carried on its dent. They lay silently in a cor­ One of these women was Serrano’s court concerning this “confes­ 4. “The reference in one of the murders with impunity during ner of the room while the score former wife, both were members sion,” Jacson was unable to re­ letters to his former associate, the period, when the French gov­ or more of assassins filled the of the Stalinist organization. member important parts of it, Dobert, is utterly unlike K rivit­ ernment hoped to wheedle Stalin walls and their bed with machine These women revealed the names was unable to remember any of sky. He would never have drawn gun slugs. Apparently the assas­ of other Stalinists involved and into a favorable alliance for the the circumstances, of his alleged Dobert into the situation by men­ sins, when they made their escape, likewise the various preparations war. conversations with Trotsky, and were convinced that they had suc­ for the assault such as the rent­ ceeded. ing of a number of houses in Co- finally refused to answer any Trotsky estimated that it had yoacan and the hiring of Stalin­ questions on the subjects men­ tioned in his confession. It was cost Stalin at least $10,000 for ists who had served in the Spanish the material preparations alone of Civil War to act as the machine One of the last pictures taken of Leon Trotsky. H e is shown with his wife, Natalia, on one of the clear that, since the document had been prepared by the GPU this assault. Only a powerful or­ gunners. picnics he enjoyed so much. ganization such as the GPU, with for the eventuality of his death, Stalin’s Murder unlimited resources and person­ Police succeeded in arresting a he had not memorized its con­ nel, could have organized such number of the assailants. They tents. were either members of the Com­ sky, he tried to justify the assault evidence he had accumulated ir­ ih Spain, and placed on it the pic­ an assault on such a scale. munist Party or closely associated as his “oWn” idea and to shield revocably branding the GPU as ture of a GPU agent who took Albert Goldman, attorney for STALIN LIES LEAD with it. A number of those who the GPU. organizer of the May 24 assault. the name “Frank Jacson.” Natalia Trotsky, was easily able List Is Long POLICE OFF TRAIL had participated gave full confes­ The Arenal brothers and Pujol The affidavit described the organ­ Jacson had already succeeded to prove in court that Jacson had never carried on the alleged con­ Immediately following the as­ sions. These confessions named are still at large, but Siqueiros ization of the GPU, substantiating in inveigling himself into the versations with Trotsky. sault, the Stalinist press began a David Alfaro Siqueiros as organ­ and Serrano are in jail. Siqueiros what Trotsky himself wrote from graces of Sylvia Ageloff, who (Continued from Page 1) Moulin, leader of the Spanish vicious campaign to throw the izer of the assault. Siqueiros had named the Arenals as the ones his own experience concerning had been known to Trotsky’s Jacson was branded as an medical care, died of tuberculosis Fourth Internationalists, met a guilt for the assault on—Trotsky: been a well-known Stalinist for who actually murdered Harte. The the GPU. Stalin undoubtedly friends for years as dependable agent of the GPU. His “confes­ in Moscow. Her sister, Zinaida, in similar fate in 1937. Erwin Wolf, sion” itself became a proof that They accused him of having or­ years, first as a leading member Arenals were known in the United chalked up Krivitsky’s aid to and loyal. He became her hus­ Berlin in January. 1933, persecut­ former secretary to Leon Trot­ ganized the assault himself in of the party and then as one of States as prominent Stalinists. Trotsky as an additional reason band and thus paved the way for he was one of the professional ed, separated from her husband, sky, Was kidnapped in Barcelo­ conjunction with the Dies Com­ the Stalinist minions prominent Their drawings were featured in for killing the former head of his becoming accepted in -the killers who constitute Stalin’s and prevented by Stalin from re­ na in September of the same mittee. The accused Harte, whom in Spain in connection with GPU the Stalinist press in Mexico for the Soviet Intelligence Service in Trotsky household as a person terror organization. turning to him, committed sui­ year, and has never been heard they had just murdered—this was activities there. As late as a few many years. Western Europe. worthy of confidence. Stalin stands branded as the cide. Their brother Sergei, a of since. before his ‘body was found—of months before the assault Siquei­ In a careful analysis of the as­ Jacson travelled with apparent­ greatest Cain of all time. His scientific worker who shunned Trotsky predicted another at­ OTHER TROTSKYISTS planning the assault in agreement ros had been prominently identi­ sault, Trotsky showed exactly how ly unlimited funds. Ho stayed in murder of Krivitsky adds another politics, was arrested by Stalin tempt on his life by Stalin’s In 1937 Ignace Reiss, a GPU with Trotsky. • fied with the Communist Party in the GPU is organized, how its the best hotels, bought himself to the almost incredibly long list in 1937, accused of mass poison­ GPU. It would occur, he said dur­ foreign agent, broke with Stalin, The Mexican police, like the Mexico. key agents sit in the Central an automobile, journeyed between of his crimes. But the brazen­ ing of workers, and was never ing one of the next great cam­ reaffirmed his devotion to the Washington police in the case of Also named in the confessions Committee of every Communist New York and Mexico by air­ ness of the murder of Trotsky, heard of again. Trotsky’s last paigns of the war in Europe, so workers’ revolution, and solidar- Krivitsky, were taken in at first of the Stalinists were the Arenal Party section and direct its ac­ plane. He gave out the story that and now of Krivitsky, measures son, Leon Sedov, his close friend that the story of attempt or suc­ ized with the Fourth Internation­ by the Stalinist propaganda. They brothers and Anthony Pujol. tivities. Ambassador Oumansky, in he was working for a wealthy the closeness of the end for Stal­ and co-worker, died suddenly, cess would be lost in the battle- al. On September 4, 1937 his bul­ began their investigation among These three together with Siquei­ Trotsky’s opinion, heads the GPU merchant, in order to account for in. In the coming period the February 15, 1938, in a Paris hos­ front headlines. Desperate efforts let-riddled body was thrown-from Trotsky’s friends, and even in­ ros were named as the organizers at present in North America, his funds, and spread the im­ workers of the Soviet Union will pital which was discovered to be were made by friends of Trotsky the car near Lausanne, Switzer­ vestigated Diego Rivera the fa­ of the assault under the guidance working out of Washington where pression that he was connected seize the first opportunity to linked to the GPU. The French to strengthen the fortifications land. Swiss and French police mous mural painter. However all of a mysterious “French Jew," the GPU last Monday killed K ri­ with a commission buying mater­ draw a close to the long bloody police— it was the honeymoon of of the house. later established the guilt of these “clues” ran against a blank who was evidently the liaison with vitsky. Oumansky is an old career ial for the Allied powers. score. They will smash the GPU the Stalin-Laval pact— under known GPU assassins, one of wall. higher GPU circles. man in the GPU-—he was never The GPU, however, had been On August 20, by a stratagem, and along with it the monster GPU pressure, refused to inves­ whom, Rossi, later Went to Mex- The assassins had left behind Siqueiros went into hiding. He known as a diplomat until .he preparing for some time, an. al­ Jacson succeeded in getting into l who as its head rules in the tigate. ico.;:- a number of incendiary and ex­ wrote a number of articles which came to Washington prior to the ternative method of doing away Trotsky’s study alone. Raising a ; Kremlin. THE GPU IN SPAIN Rudolf Klement, secretary of plosive bombs, the incendiary he sent to the press, attacking organization of the May 24 assault with Trotsky. In the spring of pick axe, he buried it in the brain And the re-awakened Russian During the civil war in Spain, the Fourth International, was bombs designed to burn Trotsky’s Trotsky. He accused Trotsky of and the August 20 assassination. 1939 the 'GPU had altered a of the world’s greatest living re­ revolution will put on its banner leading militants of the Spanish kidnapped in Paris on July 13, archives. Only Stalin could have having organized a “self-assault.” Krivitsky sent Trotsky an affi­ Canadian passport taken from a volutionary. Stalin’s long cam­ Trotsky’s last words: “I am sure 1938. Two weeks later his head­ an interest in destroying these When he was captured by the davit which TVotsky presented to dead member of the Stalinist- paign against Trotsky had suc­ of the victory of the Fourth In­ proletariat were picked o ff one archives. They left rope ladders, police after the murder of Trot­ the Mexican court as part of the controlled International Brigades ceeded. ternational. Go forward!” by one by the GPU. less and legless body was fished It was Stalin’s service to the from the Seine. “democracies.” Berneri and Bar- The crowning crime of the bieri. anarchists, Andres Nin of Kremlin Borgia was the driving the POUM, Marc Rein, son of the of a pick-axe into the brilliant 2nd International leader Abram­ brain of his unconquerable ad­ Chiang Kai-shek A nd The Stalinists ovich, Kurt Landau, Austrian versary, Leon Trotsky, on Aug­ militant, were among those as­ ust 20, 1940. The full story of sassinated by Stalin’s counter-re­ that murder is told elswhere in Meaning of His Slaughter of the New Fourth Army Is Deliberately Hidden by Browder volutionary agents in Spain. this issue.

By LI FU-JEN the same thing in 1927 when Chiang beheaded the This miserable line was necessary in order mediate concern is to see that Chiang Kai-shek - No matter what infamous crimes he commits Chinese revolution. to conceal— not the fictitious “betrayal” by expends his efforts against Japan and not against GPU Forged against the Chinese masses, no matter how bru­ If not for the fact that foreign correspondents Chiang Kai-shek, who served the imperialists his internal foes. tally and viciously he acts against the rank-and- in China secured news of the central China clash and their native allies well, but the very real be­ Browder’s most astonishing assertion is that file followers of the Chinese Communist Party, (similar occurrences in the more remote north trayal of which Stalin and his Chinese followers “the capitulators, the Chinese bourgeoisie and and notwithstanding his most treacherous sabot­ were not known about until months later and were guilty, the utter treachery of their policy generals, have seized control again.” This implies Other Letters age of ’ China’s struggle against Jap'an— Chiang then only vaguely), the Stalinists might have been which led to the massacre of the revolutionary that the bourgeoisie and the generals have been Kai-shek can continue to count upon the slavish spared the task of thinking up alibis for the forces. Today it is also necessary for them to out of power up to now. Perhaps Browder can support of the Chinese Stalinist leaders. latest conduct of the hangman of the Chinese cover up the bankruptcy of the “People’s Anti- be induced to explain when and by whom they (Continued from Page 1) in Virginia, had applied for the That is the meaning of the statement made revolution. As it was, Earl Browder was obliged Japanese United Front,” counterpart of the 1925- were replaced and how it all came about. Was the terious disappearance of another right to -protect his life by carry­ this week by T. V. Soong, brother-in-law of Gen. to come out with a statement in the Sunday 27 “bloc of four classes,” which has produced the recent attack on the New Fourth Army per­ victim of the Kremlin, Juliet ing arms and was in the midst Stuart Poyntz, comes immediately of work which he considered im­ Chiang Kai-shek, former finance minister of China, Worker on Feb. 2. hopeless impasse into which the war against chance a revolution which restored lost power to mind. Klement left his table portant. In a word, these “sui­ Japan has been led. to the generals, the bourgeoisie—to Chiang Kai- and currently the head of a Chinese financial mis­ The leader of the American Stalinists pretends set for dinner, his room ip order, cides” gave no indication what­ shek? Perhaps Browder has secret information sion in Washington, in an interview with Edgar to have arrived at the conclusion that Chiang Browder’s A libi Examined his intimate personal matters un­ ever of not desiring to continue Ansel Mowrer of the New York Post and Chicago Kai-shek attacked the New Fourth Army because as to when and how the Chinese bourgeoisie lost finished when he left his room their lives. Browder, while trying to cover up all the Daily News. Said Soong: “So long as the war he had been "given to understand that American power. for the last time. Juliet Stuart The GPU vhas executed with tracks and to avoid laying bare the class basis of against Japan goes on—which means until China help (the recent loans) required him to deal with Poyntz went for a walk in New much skill another political mur­ Chiang’s attack on the New Fourth Army, never­ has won—there is no chance of the friction be­ Chinese Communists as the Roosevelt Administra­ Bourgeoisie Admits the Truth York wearing light clothing, left der. But no skill can cover up the theless makes some damning admissions. tween Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the tion deals with American Communists, that Amer­ T. V. Soong had a much more intelligible, her personal effects and duties fatal flaws in its crimes. Even “What the high generals of the Koumintang incomplete and never again was . Chinese Communists developing into civil war— ican help required him to draw away from the and accurate, explanation for Chiang Kai-shek’s this first cursory examination of could not forgive the Chinese Communists,” he seen. Walter Krivitsky was in the current American opinion to bhe contrary not­ Soviet Union and approximate Roosevelt’s hostil­ attack on the New Fourth Army. Said he: “The the circumstances surrounding declares, “was precisely the victories won (by Fourth Army was disarmed for insubordination, midst of preparation for securing withstanding.” ity toward that country. It is utter nonsense to the safety and happiness of his Krivitsky’s death makes clear he the New Fourth Army against the Japanese), not for being Communist. But admittedly the Soong’s opinions were being sought with re­ speak as if this break originated in China, or family by moving them to a farm was a victim of the GPU. which exposed their own consistent defeats; what situation around Shanghai had become acute, for, gard to the recent battle between the Stalinist- with Chiang. It was pressed upon the Kuomintang above all they could not forgive was the qualities naturally, the Communists were trying to increase controlled New Fourth Army and Kuomintang from without as well as from within, and from and virtues which made those victories possible, their strength and spread their doctrines and it troops in central China, which resulted in the without the pressure came from Japan, Germany, exposing the corruption and incapacity of the is equally natural that the government should disarming of the Stalinist force after it had suf­ England and the United States. The ruling circles ruling generals. . . In China, to win victories oppose it.” He also revealed that the New Fourth G r a c e Carlson Reports fered thousands of casualties, and the arrest of of all four powers, despite their quarrels, agreed against the Japanese invaders is being interpret­ Army “lack the proper arms. They get none from its commander. Yell Ting. The incident itself to press upon Chiang the demand for military ed as treason! That is because the capitulators, the Russians. And the government has no inter­ was “civil war” on a local scale. What Soong liquidation of the Chinese Communists.” the Chinese bourgeoisie and generals, have seized est in keeping them too well armed. You under­ On Negro Audiences meant, of course, was that it would not be per­ This crude attempt to divorce Chiang’s control again, with the understanding that Wash­ stand, after fighting them for ten years .. ” mitted to spread, that it would be settled by “com­ action from the class politics of the Kuomintang ington and London, as well as Berlin and Tokyo, By GRACE CARLSON armed forces of the United States. promise,” that is, by Stalinist submission to regime, and to depict it as the exclusive product will back them up in delivering China again to Here is an open admission that the bourgeois- Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek has Philadelphia , Feb. 10. — Our program for trade union con­ Chiang’s orders. of foreign machination, will deceive none but. the flames of civil war, and thus to the mercy of Advertised as the “City of Broth­ deliberately starved the New Fourth Army of trol of military training was easily dull-wits. Let us recall that when Chiang be­ the Japanese invaders.” erly Love,” Philadelphia is known understood and apparently readily A Year of Local Civil lVars the means of warfare, despite the fact that, that headed the Chinese revolution in 1927, and let Who are the “high generals” of the Koumin­ among Negro workers as one of accepted by the Negro questioners. army has fought exclusively against the maraud­ News of the battle in central China came as loose a reign of terror against the workers and tang? As a matter of fact, there is only one the most reactionary and vicious The good meetings held in Tren­ ing armies of Japanese imperialism. Why has something of a shock to Stalin’s rank-and-file fol­ peasants, he acted as the agent of imperialism “high general”— Chiang Kai-shek himself. Why of the Northern cities in the treat­ ton, Allentown, Reading and this been done? Because the situation around ment of its Negro citizens. lowers in America. They did not know that this and its subordinate native partners, the Chinese isn’t he named ? For the same reason that he Quakertown are testimonials to was the culminating incident in a series of local bourgeoisie and the landlords. This was no plot Shanghai has become “acute” due to the Com­ A number of Negro workers, at­ the patient, devotfed and self-sacri­ wasn’t named, in time, in 1927: it would still tending yesterday’s discussion on civil wars between the Kuomintang and the Stal­ cooked up in foreign chancelleries, but the end munists trying to increase their strength and ficing work of true Bolsheviks. further strain the fiction of national unity.. “Negroes and the War,” nodded Comrades in these places cannot inist-led armies during 1940. Large-scale battles result of a polarization of class forces which Stal­ spread their doctrines. Moreover, what possible interest could the their agreement to my expression always see the results of their took place last year in northern China between the in’s infamous policy of the “bloc of four classes” Reduced to concrete terms this means that American imperialists (or the British, for that on our party’s position that the work as can those in larger cen­ the presence of the New Fourth Army, in spite Stalinist-led Eighth Route Army and provincial had only thinly veiled. matter) have in fomenting civil war in China, oppression of the Negro people ters. The success of the meetings, Kuomintang troops, in which the casualties sus­ Had the Chinese Communist Party recognized and thus aiding Japan at a time when Washing­ of its class collaborationist policy in the “People’s will not end until the capitalist the general interest and enthus­ tained by the Eighth Route Army far exceeded in Chiang— as Trotsky and the Left Opposition ton is actively preparing for war against the Is­ Anti-Japanese United Front” with Chiang Kai- system of exploitation is abolish­ iasm shown by those present, de­ those in the recent central China battle. The did— the political representative of the Chinese land Empire? The reactions of'the big imperial­ shek, has stimulated peasant activity in the area ed through united action of white monstrated that the work of and colored workers. Stalinists in China and in this country did every­ exploiters and their imperialist mentors, had it ist press in America, which has expressed the near Shanghai where it has been operating. Of weekly distribution of THE M IL I­ thing possible to conceal the fact that clashes had maintained its political independence and taught greatest concern over Chiang’s attack on the this fact there is plenty of evidence. Peasants The same agreement was ex­ TANT, regular and sustained con­ taken place, so that the fiction of the “People’s the masses to distrust Chiang, it could have led New Fourth Arm y and the possibility that it may have seized landlords’ estates despite frantic ef­ pressed by Negro workers of the tact work, etc. has won support Newark audience in the meeting Anti-Japanese United Front” might be preserved. the Chinese revolution to victory instead of to lead to widespread civil war, gives the lie com­ forts by the Stalinists to squelch the movement for the program of Trotskyism held there the previous Sunday. Where news qf the clashes did leak out, they in the interests of the “united front.” the slaughter-pen. But it clung to Chiang’s coat­ plete to Browder’s nonsensical assertion. The Over half of the questions direct­ among new and wider sections of whitewashed Chiang Kai-shek and attributed his tails, strangled the revolutionary initiative of the American imperialists, of course, have no love (A second article on Chiang Kai-Shek and the ed at me in Newark concerned the working class in New Jersey atrocious deeds to sinister advisers. They did masses. “Chiang will not betray us,” said Stalin. for the Stalinist forces in China, but their im­ Stalinists will appear next week.) the question of Jim Crowism in the and Pennsylvania. 4 T H E MILITANT — FEBRUARY 15, 1941 Why Krivitsky Was Murdered By Stalin’s GPU

(Continued from page 1) one-third is to be given into the hands of the students fulfilling We need only cite some of the recent events in the Soviet the work.” (PRAVDA, October 5, 1940). UKASE OF THE PRAESIDIUM OF THE SUPREME COUNCIL The children get only one-third of the product of their Union to picture the death agony of Stalinism. OF THE USSR ON THE CHANGE TO THE 8-HOUR WORK­ “school-work.” The term “schools” is a revolting cover for the ING DAY AND 7-DAY WORKING WEEK; AND THE PRO­ Stalin’s Involuntary Testimony legalization of child labor in the Soviet Union. HIBITION OF SELF-WILLED DEPARTURE OF WORKERS The Ukases of the Kremlin, the columns of the Moscow press, If in the United States, Stalin’s flunkeys explain child-labor reveal the real situation. The provincial Russian pfess is even away .as an unfortunate but indispensable war-defense measure, AND EMPLOYES FROM ENTERPRISES AND INSTITU­ more tell-tale. For example, we select at random from the head­ then in the Soviet Union on the contrary they hail it—just TIONS: as they hail the abrogation of free education—as a great historic lines which appeared in mid-October, 1940, in the “Chklalov . . . Article 5: Workers and employes who arbitrarily leave triumph. Comune,” official organ of the Chklalov province: state, cooperative and public enterprises and]or institu­ ‘‘ORDERS OF THE GOVERNMENT VIOLATED” Free Education Becomes “ Evil” tions are remitted to court and by sentence of People’s “MOST OF THE GRAIN LEFT UNTHRASHED” Judges incarcerated in prisons for a term of 2 to ^months. “INDIFFERENCE TOWARD NEXT YEAR’S HARVEST” Free education, to believe Pravda, is not only unnecessary, For stopping or skipping work without serious reason “CATTLE PILFERED FROM COLLECTIVES IN PAV- it is a great evil. It demoralizes the pupils: “Many of our stud­ workers and employes of state, cooperative and public LOVSK DISTRICT” ents haven’t really appreciated the boons of higher education enterprises and|or institutions are remitted to court and “LOSSES FROM DEFECTIVE GOODS” which they received without any exertion on their part.” It de­ sentenced by People’s Judges to terms up to six months “DIRE CONSEQUENCES OF SHORTCOMINGS IN CON­ moralizes the parents: “Free education has to certain extents of penal labor at place of employment, and up to 25 per STRUCTION” lowered the value of education in the eyes of a section of parents cent of their wages withheld. “UNCONCERNED ADMINISTRATORS” and students” (Pravda, October 22, 1940). The American hire­ “NO CHECK-UP ON PARTY DECISIONS” lings of the Kremlin go further. Education itself is no great as­ Ukase dated /m e 26, 1940, first published June 27, 1940. “NO QUORUM AT MEETINGS” set: “In the USSR one does not need to attend college to be an “STATUTES VIOLATED” honored member of society” (Soviet Russia Today, January 1941). “HOOLIGAN ATTITUDE TOWARD SCHOOLS AND These are the insane rationalizations of desperate men. i namly the Komsomols (the Russian Y.C.L.) and the trade unions. TEACHERS” The Crisis in Agriculture “STRANGE ATTITUDE TOWARD PROPAGANDA” It is officially admitted that 29,637 out of a reported total “OBLIGATIONS TO THE STATE POORLY FULFILLED” To believe Duranty and the Kremlin, Soviet agriculture is of 45,580 Komsomol functionaries were purged in July 1940, i.e., 65 percent. Another example: Kalinin began his speech in commemora­ flourishing. The 1940 crop has been a bumper crop, they claim. tion of the Twenty-Third Anniversary of the October Revolution They forget to tell the workers the following facts: A t the same time 128,000 out of a reported total of 203,821 with the following cautious but murderous admission: “A t the There are 23 million more souls in the Soviet Federation. The trade union functionaries were purged as “do-nothing scoundrels” beginning of this year,” he said, “we faced serious difficulties in per-capita production of foodstuffs is therefore lower than ever (bezdelniki) and “scoundrels who eat the bread that they haven’t the fulfillment of.the. production plan in industry.” (Izvestya, Nov. before. earned” (darmoyedniki) (Itzvestia, July 30, 1940). Again, a maj­ ority purged! 7, 1940). “Serious difficulties” is an absolutely pew phrase from Vast quantities of basic crops have to be diverted for the Stalinist boasters. army, for reserve, to say nothing about the deliveries to Hitler. Not a single Peoples’ Commissariat has escaped the purge. Here is an abbreviated list. • W alter Duranty was permitted to cable that “conditions were The losses in harvesting the crops, from neglect, pest- admittedly difficult” at the beginning of 1940 (N.Y. Times, Jan. damage, ..etc. were larger than in 1939, when riiillions of tons were The removal of Voroshilov, Budenny, Shaposhnikov, from the 22). This was done so as to give an appearance of truth to his literally left to rot in the fields. Commissariat of war only reflect at the top the mass purge be­ low in the army ranks. glowing pictures of astounding improvements since that time. The collectives are being torn apart by all the contradictions A ll facts, however, point tor the contrary. The crisis rages of Soviet agriculture, which have been driven inside the col­ A Jan. 7 Associated Press dispatch reports the removal of more violently than before. lectives. Smetanin from his post as Vice Commissar of Light Industry That is why Stalin has to silence opponents not only in Mos­ A whole series of punitive measures against the peasantry “at his own request.” Smetanin was one of the original famous Stakhanovists. ... cow but in Washington. That is why the GPU received instruc­ were promulgated in 1940. The June 26 laws were extended to the tions to- put the murder of Krivitsky at the head of its agenda, peisonnel of the Machine and Tractor Stations. A Feb. 5 AP dispatch reported still another “reorganization” once the assassination of Trotsky was successful. That is how There has been a return to masked forms of grain collec­ of three Commissariats— the Commissariats of Trade, Building Stalin seeks to “emerge” from the crisis— outside of Russia. tions and forced deliveries of foodstuffs and industrial crops to Industry, and Communications. On the same day, the news was the State. Compulsory fulfillment of “labor day” quotas has been released of the removal of Beria from his post as the head of the Stalin’s Desperate Ukases LEON SEDOV instituted. The peasant, unable to cultivate his own land strips, GPU, and the “reorganization” of Stalin’s secret police, under neglects the fulfillment of state deliveries. A further restriction one V. Merkulov. And here is how he is seeking to stabilize his regime in­ This week marks the anniversary of the death, in 1938, of Trot­ of private land-strips has been projected. In the face of all these Even the pampered intellectuals have not been spared. We ternally. Here is what he is trying to hide from world-labor: sky’s last son, killed" by the GPU. The Soviet Labor Code in force since Lenin died has been measures, an intensive growth of individual tendencies in agricul­ list only the better-known authors, dramatists, etc., who were completely abrogated by a series of 1940 Ukases. Hours have ture has been taking place. The Kremlin admits to 1,600,000 purged as “vilifiers” : A. Avdeyenko, L. Leonov, Valentin Katayev, been lengthened, wages slashed. No correspondent was permitted What must have been the real terrible conditions up to now, handicraftsmen who “account for about 18 percent of the total S. Gerassimov, M. Kozakov, M. Pogodin, K. Simonov, M. Levidov. to cable out of Moscow so much as a single line from the text of if such legislation is necessary today? industrial output of the Soviet Union.” (Daily Worker, Jan. 25, The actual number of those involved in the new purge will these Ukases. Just how is the Soviet Union strengthened by reducing 1941). probably never be known. News arrives daily of factory directors, The Daily Worker never even mentioned them...... workers to the status of prison labor? In other words, capitalist elements inside the Soviet Union engineers, foremen, etc. sent to jail for terms of three, five and For arriving more than twenty minutes late, a Soviet worker Modern large-scale industry, let alone planned economy, can­ account for almost one-fifth of the national production— and this ten years. Officials are shot for embezzlement, graft, etc., while today faces penal-labor. If he skips a day’s >vork, he is sentenced not be operated by prison labor. It is impossible to run large- on the “threshold of Communism” ! In the market the specific the super-thieves and grafters in the Kremlin remain unscathed. to penal labor. If he tries to leave his job he go-es to jail. (Ukase scale industry under a prison administration. By his decrees weight of these tendencies is of course even greater. And this The number of victims certainly runs already into hundreds of of June 26, 1940). against labor, Stalin has gravely weakened the defensive power more than ten years after Stalin proclaimed the “complete aboli­ thousands. If he produces a defective article, he goes to jail (Ukase of of the Soviet. Union. Every thinking worker must understand this. tion” of the N.E.P., i.e. of all capitalist elements in Soviet econ­ I\ew Measures of Desperation July 10, 1940). Small wonder that Soviet industry suffers chronically from a omy. These tendencies will tend to increase in the immediate If he has an accident in the factory he faces jail on the labor shortage. Under Stalin, conditions in factories have become future. But this time, the purge alone did not suffice. The apparatus charge of hooliganism (Ukase of August 10, 1940). Example: so intolerable— especially after the passage of the 1940 laws— had crumbled. Stalin found it necessary to “reorganize” the ap­ “A worker Gavrilov while dismantling a kiln in the Nogin fac­ that no peasant— to say nothing" of fcity dwellers— would dream Rising Prices— Index of Crisis paratus of domination and repression from top to bottom, t:' ; ' tory in Leningrad, dropped a plank which fell on window frames of voluntarily entering a factory. This fact was admitted by a Small wonder that speculation is assuming more and more The Army has been completely transformed. A new officers’ lying on the floor. Several panes of -glass were.broken. Gavrilov Kalinin: “The reserves of labor power in the cities” he said, V monstrous proportions; that prices are constantly rising as com­ corps has been instituted from Marshals and Generals down was arrested and brought to court on the charge of hooliganism.” “have been drained and its influx from the villages has ceased.” modities become more and more scarce. to non-commissioned officers. (Pravda, October 12, 1940) (Izvestya. Nov. 7, 1940). Washington has, on the basis of information supplied by its The Commanders now wield the power of life-and-death If a worker takes so much as a nail, he is guilty of theft diplomatic personnel in the Soviet Union, released in the August over the soldiers. “In case of insubordination, the commander and goes to jail. “Petty theft, regardless of the amount, com­ The Resort to Child Labor issue of the “Monthly Labor Review,” the state prices for a whole has the right to apply all measures of coercion up to and includ­ mitted in institutions and enterprises is punishable by a term of That is why the Kremlin has abolished free education and number of commodities from January 1, 1939 to April 10, 1940. ing the application of force of arms” (Red Star, No. 242, October one year in jail”—text of Ukase of August 10, 1940. has driven the children of workers and peasants from schools According to the statistics compiled by the American Department 15, 1940). Without any control from any side whatever, a superior A worker dare not even raise his voice to object to any order into the labor reserve. (Ukases of October 2, 1940) of Labor, the prices of essential goods have skyrocketed in the officer has the right in peace-time to shoot down a Red Army from his superiors. That also comes under the head of “disorgan­ More than 800,000 children and adolescents from fourteen to USSR by 50 to 100 percent and more since 1939. soldier for either questioning or not fulfilling a command— not izing production.” seventeen have been drafted from December 1, 1940 to February In his very first dispatch, Duranty wrote “For the first time for mutiny, not for insurrection, but for insubordination! A woman worker, Rennzova, in a factory in Leningrad was 1, 1941 as a conscript labor force. since the gaudy days of the New Economic Policy (the N.E.P.) . . . On December 20, 1940, news came that a vital section of bold enough to ask for a discharge because “she did not like the According to ’the Daily Worker, they are attending “indust­ Moscow stores have a greater supply of goods than the public Soviet industry, the defense industry— which can include every working conditions . . . Rennzova was sentenced to four months rial training schools” which will “graduate workers for—first demands. Prices, of course, are high” (N . Y. Times, Jan. 22, 1941). thing—had been placed under Army contro-l, i.e. militarized. in jail and immediately placed under the police surveillance.” and foremost—the coal mining, ore mining, metallurgical, and oil The prices are so high-that not even the privileged bureau­ These last two facts epitomize the regime: an Arm y ruled* (Pravda, July 7, 1940. Our emphasis). A woman worker has the industries, and the building trades.” The latest dispatches tell crats are able to strip the shelves of Moscow stores! This is what by an officers’ corps which has the power to shoot its subordinates audacity to disagree about working conditions and 'demands a that children arc also- being “graduated” for the timber industry, Duranty’s boast really means. And this statement alone rips the and the power to run industry under the same m ilitary life-and- discharge— To jail with her! The G.P.U. has other methods to i.c. the lumber camps. “In this way,” explains the Daily Worker, veils from the secrecy with which the Kremlin surrounds the cost death powers. Nothing more need be known except these two convince those outside of the Soviet Union. “in 1941 the . . . schools will be able to give socialist industry ap­ of living in the Soviet Union. If the bureaucrats cannot buy, facts, and one could characterize the regime; remorselessly cruel Only bureaucrats mad with fear and drunk with power would proximately 800,000 yorkers.” (Daily Worker, Feb. 7, 1941). what can the workers do? Stalin’s solution is to x-eintroducc for as only a regime is when it is in its death agony. dream of instituting such working conditions. It is a lie that the Are the children at least getting adult wages for being forced every factory its own vegetable patch, pig farms, dairy farms, A regime which can perpetrate these multitudinous crimes workers have “greeted” these laws. They are resisting bitterly. to do adult labor? fish ponds, etc. One of the major current campaigns has this as against the many-millioncd peoples of the Soviet Union would All the more reason, therefore, for the GPU’s orders: Shoot to- “By decision of the Soviet Government,” lies the Daily Work­ it’s task. scarcely halt at any steps to murder its opponents outside its kill! No voice of protest must be heard even abroad. It might er. “all the net receipts for production orders executed by the In other words, if the workers want to eat, they will have to boundaries, except to execute the crimes skillfully. penetrate into the Soviet Union! schools for the state will remain in the industrial training Schools. raise their own food! And that is what has happened to W alter Krivitsky. By Ukase of October 19, 1940, this compulsory labor legis­ (Daily Worker, Feb. 7, 1941). Stalinism—compelled to reveal itself for what it is: the mor­ I f this latest crime of the Kremlin does nothing else, it lation has been extended to the administrative and technical We confront these scoundrels who peddle their lies behind tal enemy of the Soviet masses, workers, peasants and the youth should shock thinking workers into a close examination of the staffs of Soviet institutions, thus in effect converting managers, • GPU guns with the text of Order No. 1 of the Labor Reserves — has no other weapon in its arsenal except to intensify its al­ regime which must resort to such methods. We have sought to engineers, technicians, etc., into wardens, turnkeys, and trustees Administration. Article 19 of this Order follows: ready incredible terror. outline the findings of such an examination. But we ur&e every in these virtual prison-factories. “It is hereby established that one-third of the revenues ac­ If, outside the Soviet Union, Stalin has ordered the murder worker to examine the facts independently for himself. We are Even the most brazen apologist of Stalinism cannot unload cruing from the fulfillment of these orders as well as for the of his opponents above all, Trotsky and then Krivitsky, then in­ sure that, if he docs so, he will arrive at the same finding of facts everything on the war danger. Any honest reader of the Daily work done by the students during their training in industry is side the country he has unleashed a new silent “bloodless” purge. that we have outlined. It is not the Soviet Union, but the mortal Worker must ask himself: I f conditions are wonderful as Browd- assigned to the state budget; onc-third remains at the disposal As was to be expected, those organizations which are most enemy of the Soviet which has committed these crimes: the Bona- er-Fo-ster and Co. say, why were such unheard-of laws necessary? of Directors . . . master-workmen (foremen) and instructors; and directly subject to mass pressure were the first to feel the blows, partist Kremlin. Browder Knows The Man Who Shot Krivitsky Stalin’s GPU Murder Machine Uses The "Communist" Party In Each Country For Its Gangster Work

The murder of Walter Krivit­ that gives orders to the GPU but resources of the American sec-1 Comintern, explained the proce­ bribery. Whatever revolutionary | of transmitting money and in­ and thirdly upon the carefully mitted. Polish and Irish terrorists sky brings into sharp focus once on tlie contrary it is the GPU tiou of the Comintern. dure as follows: phrases may be used to cloak the structions from Moscow to a for­ planned and implacable persecu­ behaved similarly in their strug­ again the international murder that completely 'dominates the This GPU agent’s power is all “Directly upon the request of ugliness, bribery is the foundation eign country for the use of the tion meted out to all agents who gle for national independence. .It machine which not only disposes Comintern. This domination finds embracing. He not only determines the GPU, the Party supplied it of the relationship. Compared to local Communist Party is through deviate from their orders one is entirely otherwise with the of the Kremlin’s political enemies, its expression in the sudden the amount and oversees the distri­ with Party members who could ordinary party functionaries, GPU the diplomatic pouches, which.are iota. Stalinists. After perpetrating a but terrorizes all sections of the changes of Central Committees of bution of all subsidies from Mos­ be added to its espionage staff. agents live on a lavish scale. immune from search . . . From There are many rank and file scheduled murder they not only Third International. all the sections, as Moscow wills cow, but he has veto power on These Party members became full- They always travel first 1 class, Moscow . . . in packages, bearing Communists with grave misgiv­ disown their own handiwork, but it; in the purges which are car­ the seal of the Soviet government, ings concerning the GPU. Some By now, there can be no ques­ policy and sees to it that the par­ fledged GPU agents, employed and stop at the best hotels and have seek to foist it on their political tion but that tlie GPU excels even ried out 'by mysterious hands, ty’s conduct does not in any way paid by the Soviet government. prodigious accounts. (arrive) rolls of banknotes to­ of them try privately, to ration­ opponents. They do not act in the Gestapo in diabolical efficien­ behind the party’s back.” run contrary to the interests of These agents were the link be­ gether with scaled instructions alize the acts of violence commit­ cy. The chief reason for this is the GPU. Since there is no democ­ tween the Party and the GPU. FINANCIAL POWERS for their distribution. He (the ted. by comparing it with early the interests of the people, but that I lie GPU has tlie various POWERS OF T H E GPU’S ratic discussion concerning his Contacts were made for them by OF T H E GPU GPU agent) personally delivers revolutionary attempts against the in the interests of the totalitarian the roll of bills to the Communist Czar, etc. But such individual ter­ sections of the Comintern at its AMERICAN AGENT decisions, tlie agent can force any the Party Secretariat, who from The funds at the disposal of the gang. They are compelled to de­ disposal. Just before his assassin­ The GPU, Trotsky went on to party member, under penalty of time to time advised them how GPU stagger the imagination. leader, with whom lie maintains ror, which Marxists have always ceive the people. This cowardly ation, Trotsky explained in great show,- dominates the Comintern's moral and sometimes physical an­ to proceed. A Parly member who They are nothing less than all direct contact.” opposed, had a revolutionary his­ detail the relationship between the actions, by placing one of its nihilation, to carry out the direc­ became a GPU agent dropped out that Stalin plunders from the So­ tory and connotation that is far duplicity invests the terror of the GPU and the Comintern. His an­ agents upon tlie Central Commit­ tives of the GPU. i- of Party activity the moment he viet masses. These funds are sent NO ANALOGY WITH removed from the bloody chapters GPU with a dishonest and repul­ alysis was published after his tee of each section. This agent This GPU agent on the Central was selected. He became subject from the Kremlin for work abroad CLASSICAL TERRORISM now being written by the GPU. sive character.” is seldom known for what he is The GPy's efficiency begins to Trotsky wrote on this question: death in the November issue of Committee is also charged with to the severe discipline which the under the stamp of the Comintern, Krivitsky was murdered in the Fourth International, under except by one or two of the top the creation and direction of a GPU imposes upon its agents. or International Red Aid. or So­ be understandable. Its superiority “ It is impossible not to under­ Washington, which means that he tlie title, "The Comintern and the leaders. Oji the Central Committee local — in this case, American— Only a very few of the Party ciety for International Cultural to any system of espionage ever score the vast difference between GPU.” of the American section it is section of t.he GPU. Gitlow, one leaders knew when a Party mem­ Relations, or Friends of the So­ before conceived by man is based, the use of terror by revolutionary was murdered by. the American “As organizations,” Trotsky ex­ Browder, and possibly Foster, of the founders of the Communist ber became a GPU agent, and they viet Union, etc., etc. One sure first., upon the Russian masses parties and by the gangs of the section of the GPU. This is the GPU. Russia was the classic coun­ plained. “the GPU and the Comin­ who knows the true identity of Party in the United Slates, mem­ kept this information strictly con­ mepns of transportation of the who are plundered to support it. master (hat Browder knowingly tern are not identical but they tlie GPU agent. It is Browder who ber of its Central Committee for in lavish style; secondly upon the try for individual tcrrOr. The re­ fidential.” funds was revealed by Krivitsky accepts. This is the master that are indissoluble. They are sub­ knowingly sits beside the organ­ many years, member of the Ex­ The principal source of the in his book “In Stalin's Secret Comintern which supplies unlimit­ volutionary parties used to as­ the rank aud file Communist par­ ordinated to one another, and izer of the Krivitsky murder; a ecutive Committee of the Comin­ GPU’s control over its agents once Service.” He wrote: ed numbers of operatives- of all sume openly the responsibility for moreover it is not the Comintern murder planned and executed with tern and of the Presidium of the they have been recruited, is “One of the favorite methods races, nationality and citizenship; every sanguinary act they com­ ty members unkowingly accept. FEBRUARY 15, 1941 — THE MILITANT 5

The Aluminum Monopoly On Trial Batista’s Latest \ ______. Ukase Against It Controlled Magnesium To Prevent It From Being Produced By ALBERT PARKER Cuba’s Workers Randolph, The Judas Goat By DON DORE the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and peting companies began to pro­ important and useful metal was Until recently, the carload price duce magnesium in this country. reduced to a minimum. of magnesium in America was 30 Four or five months ago A. Philip Randolph, Every atom of aluminum con­ establish a monopoly over a basic By ROSAS tained in American products, from resource. In a short time, the field was nar­ The actual directors of this con­ cents a pound, and is now 2 head or the Pullman Porters union, issued a state­ cents a pound. Yet magnesium ex- HAVANA, Cuba, Jan. 30—In a sweeping de­ coffee pots to super bombers, And though ALCOA looms large rowed to just two companies, Dow spiracy are in reality just two, ment called “The Battle for Britain,” which called ported to Germany was sold, del cree promulgated on January 30, the “ demo­ comes from {he Aluminum Com­ in the picture of this conspiracy, Chemical and - American Magne­ ALCOA and the German dye trust, for support by the Negro people of all aid, short ivered to the docks in Germany pany of Amferica. Through that it does not concern directly the sium. Between 1920 and 192’/. I. G. Farben. cratic” government of Col. Fungencio Batista il- of war, to Great Britain. at 21 cents a pound. company has been heaped up the metal aluminum, but another and ALCOA moved into the picture by The Germans work through the legalized all international organizations and an­ General Analine and Film Corpor­ The monopoly was not under­ Randolph was immediately answered by George billion dollar fortune of the Mel­ competitive metal—magnesium. acquiring control of American nulled the democratic liberties guaranteed by the Magnesium. In August 1927, the ation, which they own and which taken for profit—front magnesium Schuyler, Pittsburgh Courier columnist, who took lon Family, fourth on the list of Magnesium is considered today- constitution. Severe penalties are provided for first big step of the monopoly con­ shares with ALCOA the ownership On tlie contrary, it was under­ lip each of his arguments point by point and tore America's Sixty Families. one of the basic and essential war those carrying on revolutionary propaganda and spiracy was taken. American Mag­ of the American Magnesium Cor­ taken to lim it to a minimum the them to pieces. Randolph did not try to answer materials. It is a tough, readily agitation. As early as 1912, the Aluminum nesium agreed to stop producing poration, largest fabricator in production of magnesium alto Schuyler; and Randolph's statement was widely fabricated metal, one-third lighter Company of America was termed magnesium and to buy its supply America. gether. Ostensibly aimed at “ organizations, centers than aluminum. It is the best distributed by the warmongering Committee to a monopoly by the Federal courts, from Dow Chemical at a price The Magnesium Development The chief American conspirator, and individuals who endeavor in their activities and lightest metal now commer­ Defend America by Aiding the Allies. in 1924, 1928 and 1930 the Fed­ below that required of any other Corporation of Newark is also ALCOA, did not, and does not, to1 propagate totalitarian political ideals,” the eral Trade Commission filed com­ cially available for use in the fab­ This week again Randolph, undaunted by the purchasers. owned and controlled jointly by want to produce magnesium. It decree in reality is directed against the political plaints ‘against this corporation, rication of aiiplane bodies and ALCOA and tlie German dye trust. is interested exclusively in alu weakness and falseness of his arguments, has Tile next step was the getting and trade union organizations of the working charging that it was an absolute parts. Magnesium is as common The Dow Chemical Company, minum. issued another statement, “England’s Fight Our together of the defendants in this class especially those of a revolutionary charact­ monopoly. In 1937, the govern­ as the brine under the earth’s in return for the exclusive right The many and devious means case to control and share entirely er. Even the Communist Party, which has been Cause.” ment again filed' suit against surface and sea water, from which to produce magnesium, sells its whereby ALCOA secured its hold among themselves the American a loyal lackey of Batista, and still vociferously “Negroes,” he begins, “should support ‘all out ALCOA to break it up. The net it is refined. But Us refinement product only to these fabricating over the production of magnesium magnesium field by pooling all the aid,' including the Lend-Lease Bill, to Great Bri­ effects of all these complaints and and fabrication present a very companies which are all in the were intended to lim it the magne­ supports the government, is confronted with a special technological problem. And essential patents, including those tain, short of war, because she is fighting the Suits was—the rebate of millions hands of ALCOA and I. G. Farben. sium industry as a competitive in none too bright future. However, the government of dollars of taxes to the Mellon thereby hangs a tale. held by the German dye trust. cause of democracy, the only hope and salvation DESIGNED TO PREVENT dustry to that of aluminum. will still make use of the valuable services ren­ estate. dered by Stalinism. Two members of the cabinet of minority groups.” A VAST INTERNATIONAL From this poiht on, by common USE OF MAGNESIUM It does not matter to the Mel Now again a new set of indict­ TRUST CONSPIRACY agreement, Dowi Chemical became Among the specific practices Ion Family that magnesium Is a declared that the decree will apply to the Com­ Did Randolph ever hear about the British Em­ ments are brought by a U. S. The indictment just handed the sole American producer of whereby this monopoly was main­ better and cheaper metal than alu munist Party only in case of war. pire? Does he know that it is the greatest cor­ Grand Jury against the Aluminum down discloses a gigantic interna­ magnesium, while the other firms tained were: minum for many essential pro­ In the lengthy decree one reads that the poration of slave colonies the world has ever Company of America, together tional conspiracy to control the and their licenses became the ex­ The conspiring firms worked un­ ducts. It does not matter to the seen? Does he know that it has more than 400,000,- measure is directed against organizations and with five other corporations under supply of magnesium, fix prices clusive fabricators; Thus, despite der an agreement under which Mellon Family that this is an es individuals who “ consjjire against the sover­ 000 colored people under its control, that the ts direct or indirect control, for on a purely arbitrary basis, en­ the almost illimitable possibilities each declined orders from tire cus­ sential war product. Sentiment eignty and independence of the nations of this “cause of democracy” for which it is fighting is conspiracy, in collaboration with tirely eliminate competition. for the expansion of the magne­ tomers of the others. didn't build that, billion dollar for­ continent; foment disturbances and difficulties not intended to include “these 400,000,000, that the German dye trust, to violate After the last war, several com­ sium industry, the supply of this Prices were fixed by agreement. tune. in the unfolding of their internal life; try to dis­ the democracy of Great Britain means oppression, One thing we can he certain of ALCOA is not too worried by the rupt American unity, the good neighbor policy exploitation, dictatorial rule, discrimination, seg­ present indictment b rought and understanding between their peoples, and regation, excessive taxation, denial of every kind against it. It has faced similar continental solidarity in order to prepare in this of liberty but the liberty to work for the lowest The Stalinists Capture The Corpse Of situations before, and knows just manner, by means of well organized propaganda, wages in the world or starve? how far the capitalist government political penetration, the loss of our liberties and Randolph of course must know what this de­ is prepared to go against any of tlie breakdown of our institutions.” mocracy means to the Negro, not only in the the ruling aggregates of capital The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party in America. British Empire, hut right here in the United Batista Obeys His Master’s Voice Thurman Arnold’s "anti-trust States whei*e he is Jim-Crowed and discrimin­ war” may succeed in placing be­ One can heW in this the voice of master Cor­ ated against everywhere and in everything. M INNEAPO LIS, Minn.—The Communist Party packed completely from the Farmer-Labor didates, to set up a machinery hind bars trade union officials who dell Hull behind the yelping of Col. Batista. The the state convention of the Farmer-Labor Association, January Association and working towards that can control the candidates have helped to maintain the closed good neighbor policy by which Wall Street strives Two Kinds of Imperialism? 30-31 in St. Paul, and took over the corpse of the once-powerful a local labor party set-up whereby once elected, and to keep the shop and union wages. But he to attain imperialist hegemony over Latin Ame­ representatives from all local un­ movement constantly pointed to­ “Now. of course,” he continues," there are those -armer-Labor movement of this state. doesn’t dare to trifle too much rica must be fostered at all costs. And if the Badly defeated in the last two elections, the Farmer-Labor ions would hold city political con­ wards a national labor party. with the heirs and assignees of workers and their organizations dare to protest who say that this is an imperialist war . . . It is ventions, much after the manner Such a nation-wide labor party movement has floundered rudderless, a field of battle between old Andy Mellon. against the inordinate pretentions of Uncle Sam, true . . . in the sense that Germany, Great Britain in which the last St. Paul muni­ will have Us main base, not in No indeed! Instead, the govern­ the Stalinists and the conscious and unconscious social-demo­ why that is “ totalitarian” propaganda! and Italy are imperialist nations, and that Great cipal campaign developed. Minnesota, not from the remnants ment will continue, as in the past, Britain has been and is an oppressor of the crats. Neither faction was capable of putting forward a bold There is a possibility that sim­ of the Fanner-Labor Association to lay cash on tlie line for ALCOA The following are important extracts from darker races. But it does not follow that Great program of independent labor action upon which to rebuild the ilar municipal labor parties may now in the clutches of the Stal­ for every ounce of aluminum it the decree: Britain, Germany and Italy represent equal de­ movement; both factions vied in ignoring and thrusting aside arise in Minneapolis and Duluth. inists, but in the centers of heavy uses in its war preparations, from 1. “ Any organization or association, whatso­ t grees of evil and danger to the darker races and the trade union movement. It was a foregone conclusion that Should this trend occur, it industry, where tlie huge concen­ field kitchen equipment to flying ever its form or apparent aim, which has con­ to . . . progress and the cause of peace ...” ownership of the remains would finally fall into the hands of would be the duty of all progres­ fortresses. nections with international organizations, or sive unionists to enter such move­ trations of workers will soon the better-organized of the tw o' * * * which strives to win over followers against the Then follows an attempt to differentiate be­ the Farmer-Labor movement muse ments, to press for progressive start marching towards indepen­ ipportunist factions, which was, t On February 6, subsequent to tween imperialist Germany and imperialist base itself upon the union move­ platforms and trade union can­ dent labor political action. republican, representative and democratic regime if .course, the Communist Party > the writing of the foregoing ar­ Britain. ment, which in this state means of Cuba, or which in any manner proceeds against ipparatus. i ticle, the ^Uuminum Company of the AFL. Since Olson died, no national sovereignty, is declared illegal and pro­ Hitler has shown his contempt and disdain In the organization of the con- * America announced that it had Farmer-Labor leadership lias hibited.” Of the Negro people in “Mein Kampf” where he vention, each of the two groups ‘ taken over complete control ot arisen capable of grasping this 2. “The use of flags, emblems and insignia <&iis them half-apes and sub-human. The Nazis sought to gain an advantage over 1 -the American Magnesium Corpor­ elementary fact. And the- Favmer- F B I Pushing Adoption in F t a iice p tilled down Negro s tat lies atid drove the other. The right-wingers man- € ation, buying out the half interest contrary1 to the regime of the democratic and Laborites have gone down twice the- Negroes out of the country. “Iti other words, aged to have the convention held 1 of the General Aniline and Film republican government of Cuba are prohibited.” on a Thursday and Friday, hop- to1 defeat.” 3. “ Hymns, songs, marches and other musical Hitler preaches and practices, unashamedly, his Of Wire Tapping Bill Corporation, which is in turn con­ ing that the Stalinists would be j trolled by I. G. Farben, the Ger­ compositions, theatrical and motion picture pro­ hellish hatred of all Negroes.” PRO-WAR ELEMENT unable to bring enough delegates Most of the right-wing Farmer- man dye trust. ductions, radio broadcasts, greetings, paintings, Randolph then contrasts to this his version of from paper organizations on a j Laborites are pro-Roosevelt and The Federal Bureau of Investi­ concentration camps for deport- The announcement stated also: photographs, drawings, books, magazines, news­ the behavior of British imperialism. Does he say week day to gain control of the r pro-war and would feel more at gation, which is preparing to be­ able aliens. “As requested, by the Office of Pro­ papers and other means whose purpose it is to meeting. The Stalinists inserted ) a word about the policies it is still carrying on home in the out-and-out boss party come the American equivalent of duction Management of the na­ affirm and spread totalitarian ideology and doc­ in the convention call a provision t In order to secure the most fav­ in Africa and India and the West Indies, the than they did in the Farmer-La­ the Nazi Gestapo, is quietly push­ tional defense program, the Alu­ permitting the registration fee of t orable hearing for the bill, which trine or which aim in any way to attack the denial of all rights of free speech, free press and bor movement. ing a wire-tapping hill through minum Company of America will ?1 per delegate to be paid at any is really an amendment to the democratic1 principles consecrated in the consti­ free assemblage, the arrests of all who speak up Ever since the election fiasco Congress which will enable the Federal Communications Act, it start immediately the further ex­ tution of the Republic, are prohibited.” ■ ihie up to the close of the con- last ] November, various leading against the war, the intensification during the government not .only to spy upon has been called a bill to "amend pansions of American Magnesium vention. jFarmer-Laborites have been dick­ 3. “ The authorities will arrest and turn over war of the exploitation of the Africans to raise labor organizations, but which the judicial code.” By this device, Corporation so that the manufac­ ering with the Democratic ma­ ture of magnesium products will to the Tribunals of Justice... those who commit the money to run the war? Not a word. For then CONTROL SEE-SAWS will permit wire-tapping evidence the sponsors of the bill are rout­ chine. George Hagen of Crookston the following acts: The right-wingers took control to be used as admissable evidence ing it around the Senate Inter­ be greatly increased . . . Tlie mag­ he would have to admit that while Hitler preaches actually led a handful of Farmer- a. “ Receive money from a foreign power or jf the convention Thursday when j in the courts. state Commerce Committee and nesium business lias been an un­ and practices Negro oppression, England keeps Laborites into the Democratic state senator George Lommen was f The bill would permit any in­ into the hands of the Senate Judi­ profitable one but magnesium is from any person, layman or official, native or quiet and practices it, that while Hitler calls the fold. Few Farmer-Laborites follow­ elected chairman over Howard Y. vestigator for any U.S. government ciary Committee, an ultra-reac­ an essential material in a number foreigner for the realization of an oral or writ­ Negro inferior, England keeps quiet and treats him ed Hagen,' chiefly because the fac­ of important aluminum alloys and Williams, 296 votes to 193. But j agency to tap wires upon its own tionary body which is known to ten cattipaign against the democratic regime tion-ridden Democratic machine is highly important at this time as an inferior. they reckoned without the capa- j "findings” that a felony “may have favor wire-tapping. established in Cuba. in this state is even more down- Instead, Randolph points to the “co-operation city of the Stalinist machine to been committed, is being commit­ because of various applications in b. “ Issue stamps, seals, medals, slugs or other at-the-heels and shabby than the ted, or may be about to be com­ It is no secret that this measure which it is valuable for defense Britain is giving Emperor Haile Selassie” in pour paper delegates into the ‘ similar objects with the purpose of collecting Farmer-Labor Association. Bot,h mitted.” orginated with the FBI. This materials.” driving the fascists out of Ethiopia. , He also gathering. funds for the propagation of ideas or principles Hjalmar Petersen and Paul Ras­ Under the pretext that a felony agency is citing the urgency of Evidently the Aluminum Com­ points to the fact that since the raids over Lon­ Friday noon the Stalinist-con- , contrary to the democratic regime. mussen have been in Washington "may he about to he committed” the bill for "national defense.” pany is formally dissociating from don, West Indian Negroes have been permitted •rolled Hennepin County Farmer- dickering , with Flynn, national While wire-tapping ts a usual c. “ Make attempts to collect money with Labor association plunked down ; the FB I could with full legality its German connections, and is to join the RAF. And beyond that, he has noth­ Democratic chairman. Rasmussen; spy upon any labor union during thing with the FBI, so far it has preparing to engage in the “un­ which to spread propaganda against the regime 523 for twenty-three more dele- ] ing to say. former F-L budget commissioner, been employed merely to secure profitable” production of magne­ of democratic, representative government of the tates. The amount had been cal- , strikes, or wherever a labor con­ now handies one-half of the fed­ flict is brewing. It could compile information. Wire-tapping evi­ sium—for which there is a 20 Republic of Cuba, or against national sover­ The fact that he can point to so few specific tulated to a nicety, as was ^p- , eral patronage in Minnesota. Pe­ dence is not admissable in the times greater demand now than eignty.” things which can be offered in England’s favor parent when the elections for , information of internal plans of tersen hopes to complete a dicker the unions and the masses of mem­ courts, as yet. two years ago. On the same day is proof itseir of the bankruptcy of Randolph’s date officers caine up in the after- , 6. “ All postal, telegraphic, radiotelegraphic, with Flynn whereby he will re­ bers for a black-list. The CIO, AFL and Railroad as the Aluminum Company’s an­ noon. , and radiotelephonic correspondence which carries position. ceive Democratic support for gov­ The bill was introduced quietly Brotherhoods have condemned the nouncement, the individual de­ If the 1941 Convention of the ernor i in 1942. on propaganda in favor of totalitarian regimes into the House of Representatives bill as the most serious menace fendants in the “anti-trust” trial and against the democratic regime is illegal and, The Truth About Ethiopia Farmer-Labor Association ever Following the recent state con­ two weeks ago by Rep. Hobbs, to labor and civil rights likely to Were released on a bail of—$1000 toes down in history (which is ■ consequently, non-tr&nsmittable and subject to Imperialist Britain, which was largely respon­ vention, several St. Paul union­ Alabama poll-tax Democrat and be passed at this time by Con­ apiece. We’ll bet you any amount idubtfUl), it will be remembered j seizure.” sible for Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, is now des­ ists have suggested cutting away author of a proposal to establish gress. they never go to trial. ts the convention purchased by 7. “ The granting of licenses or authorizations cribed as helping to free Ethiopia today! Even the Communist Party for ?23. to carry firearms is prohibited, and those granted Randolph knows that this is a little too much The Stalinists elected as state up to -date are evoked ...” to get people to swallow, so he tries to qualify chairman of the Association ex- 8. “Foreigners who carry on totalitarian pro­ it. “There are those who cynically remark that Governor Elmer Benson; who won paganda or other acts contrary to the peace of England’s support of the freedom of Ethiopia out over Charles Munn on the the republic or the stability of its institutions is inspired by a selfish interest. There would be second ballot by a vote of 256% will be expelled.” no point in denying this. It is true. But what to 252%. Munn moved to make it unanimous. Benson came for­ 9. “ If this decree gives rise to any doubts, is wrong with it? The motivation of all great such doubts will be resolved by the Minister of power nations is self interest. Self interest is ward on the platform and made t strange acceptance speech in Justice.” not to be condemned if it is not anti-social and which he said truly: " I am not 10. “ All decrees and dispositions of the exe­ reactionary. Here, the self interest of Great half so radical as some of you cutive power which in any form conflict with Britain takes the form of fighting to help restore people think.” the present decree are abolished.” the independence apd liberty of a smaller, de­ At this point the trade union fenseless nation, and thereby serves the cause of delegates from St. Paul walked humanity and justice, though, verily, this course out. They comprised about all the 6f action be belated.” union representatives at the con­ Thus, according to Randolph, England isn’t vention, the Minneapolis unions long since having severed connec­ fighting Germany because these two gangs of ban­ tions, save for the few CIO un­ dits each want control of the colonies and their ions and a dozen small AFL locals. markets, England isn’t fighting because it wants As the Northwest Organizer, to continue its exploitation of the 400,000,000— Minneapolis teamsters’ organ, it's fighting because it is interested in the free­ said: “From a union viewpoint dom of Ethiopia! there was little to •’boose between “Therefore,” he says, “the Battle of Britain i3 the contesting group in St. Paul. Both groups have shown themsel- the Battle of America, and the Battle of America es as unfriendly to the union is the Battle of the Negro ...” movement; neither has shown any I f England’s fight to maintain its death grip on desire to give the unions their the colonies is the Battle of the Negro, one may rightful p’ace in control of the logically ask, why give only aid "short of war” ? Farmer-Labor movement. Randolph’s only answer, when Roosevelt and the “The late Floyd B. Olson, an Sixty Families give the word, will be: That’s astute politician, understood that to win elections in Minnesota the right, we’ve got to get into the war too. And Farmer-Labor movement must again, -Randolph will have no answer to those who win a large majority of votes from try to point the correct path to the workers of the three metropolitan areas hi the world: uniting Negro- and white against the order to offset the conservative Imperialist gangsters on both sides and taking vote from rural reaction. Olson power to set up a socialist society. understood that this meant that 6 T H E ‘MIL IT A N T — FEBRUARY 15, 1941

we were ready to join hands to rid the labor move­ ment of terrorist methods of struggle against op­ Maritime Unions Faced Pacifist Clap-Trap ponents. We are ready to join hands with any sec­ tion of the labor movement, no matter what its politics, for this task is apart from political dif­ By Dirksen’s New Bill Is "Anti-War" ferences, in joint struggle against,the GPU. The GPU, w'hich substitutes for political struggle the Stalinist Program methods of gangsterism, must be destroyed. The Fortunately, All Unions, AFL and CIO Alike Know That This Is fight against the GPU is.an elementary measure A Common Danger Which All Must Join in Fighting Against By MICHAEL CORT of political sanitation—to save the labor move­ The Communist Party is now conducting a drive ment as a whole from this terrible syphilis. WASHINGTON, D. C.—All maritime labor unions.reacted ord of the Stalinist-controlled “for the preservation of peace.” Congressmen are K rivitsky’s death should awaken all sections to a man when Rep. Dirksen of Illinois introduced his anti-labor NMU, has been in respect to such receiving floods of mail, having their homes picketed, legislation— particularly in the of the labor movement to the urgent need for co­ I louse Resolution 2662. The unions have adopted resolutions their offices deluged with shouting demonstrators. condemning this measure and- declaring a fight to the finish “People’s Front” days when the Picket lines and demonstrations are good working operation in this urgent task. We have no desire Stalinists were working practical­ class weapons. But what are the slogans? against it. ly in cahoots with the Maritime to enter into recriminations concerning the past, The American Peace Mobilization is the Popular H.R. 2662 is the result of a great deal of behind-the-scenes Commission—the impending at­ Front organization now absorbing most of the Com­ although the utter failure of the rest of the labor activity recently by the shipowners and the Navy High Com­ tack is realized as affecting the munist Party’s efforts. APM ’s National Council con­ movement to join in arousing labor opinion when mand with regard to the future status of the merchant marine. very existence of unionism on the Dirksen launched a tria l balloon a few weeks ago when he an­ high seas. sists of Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, profes­ Trotsky was murdered might well be cited as a nounced he would present a bill virtually drafting all American Despite the rotten sell-outs of sional pacifists, teachers, novelists, singers, actors, partial cause of the success of the GPU in assas­ seamen into the Naval Reserve. Such a storm of protest arose the C. P. “top fractions” in the evangelists and a core of Stalinist trade unionists. sinating Krivitsky. Hereafter there must be a clear against this proposed regimenta­ past, the SUP and SIU actions This predominantly bourgeois and petty-bourgeois tion of the sea-going workers that has gone on record to fight this in respect to the Dirksen Bill Council may be passedxiff privately by the Stalinists monstrous piece of legislation FIGHT WITH THE understanding that the struggle against the GPU even a group of shipowners began show that they do not intend to • as “merely a front,” but in reality, as we shall see, head-on. is the common task of the labor movement. to call for the withdrawal of this be derailed from meeting this all- it typifies the program of APM. ' SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY It is to’ be expected that, if around attack by yielding to the proposal. Just what is the struggle against imperialist war? the bill as a whole does not go red-baiting propaganda of the After beating a retreat, the Na­ through the strategists behind ii Lenin taught us that it is the struggle against capi­ vy High Command and Rep. Dirk­ shipowners and their stooges. ON THE WAR FRONT: will try to push over sections of They do not intend to be cats’ talism, nothing more dr less. The way to stop or bring sen hit upon the new scheme in­ it. That is the meaning of the an end to the war is to overthrow capitalism. That corporated in H. R. 2662. It pro­ paws for John Shipowner in F o r: action taken by Dirksen in at­ is why Lenin called for a struggle against the pacif­ poses the abolition of the union smashing the NMU—for they 1. M ilitary training of workers, financed by the gov­ tempting to get an anti-union­ know that the objective of the sea­ ists, who' separate the fight against war from the hiring hall; the introduction of hiring-hall amendment tacked on ernment, under control of the trade unions. compulsory arbitration and medi­ men’s enemies is the smashing of fight against capitalism. And that is what the Stalin­ to an appropriations bill last week. all unionism as such. As against ist have failed to do, for APM is a purely pacifist 2. The establishment of special officers’ training Stalin's Alibi ation machinery with a 30-day The amendment was defeated by strike “announcement” clause this objective, every union seaman organization. camps, financed by the government and controlled After cautiously waiting one day—on which it the close vote of 73- to 51 and realizes that one common strug­ by the trade unions, to train workers to become such as big business lias been shows that the possibility of such According to the official pamphlet “What is APM ” merely printed jthe United Press dispatch on Kri­ clamoring for in respect to labor gle is the need of the day. the following is its complete domestic program: 1. In ­ officers. vitsky’s death, "suitably” edited— the Daily Work­ attacks on the seamen being enact­ as a whole; the prohibition, on ed is dangerously real. - A UNION OFFENSIVE sure conscripts of their constitutional rights under the 8. Confiscation of all war profits— all company books er (February 12) has now come forward with Stal­ board ship, of all literature which But the nefarious objective of Conscription Act. 2. Bar war profiteering. 3. Check the to be open for trade union inspection. in’s alibi. It consists of just two points, each of the ships master may regard as UNION TASKS the enemies of maritime labor increases in the cost of living. 4. Fight evictions. subversive; a new clamp on the To oppose this well thought out can be defended not merely by a 4. Expropriation of all war industries and their which is well worth examining. 5. Defend civil liberties. 6. Repeal the Alien Registra­ hiring of foreign-born union sea­ and minutely-prepared strategy of 1. A libi No. 1 is presented in a signed article defensive struggle against vicious tion Act. 7. Enact the Anti-Lynching Bill. 8. Enact the operation under workers’ control. men and, last but not least, the the shipowners and the Navy High legislation. To be successful, the by Sender Garlin. That choice of writer is not ac­ Anti-Poll Tax Bill. 9. Fight to repeal the Conscrip­ 5. Trade union wages for all workers drafted into the introduction of the compulsory Command, the unions will have to unions must carry the attack over cidental! Garlin is a graduate of the'lop Moscow “Fink Book,” a virtual labor pass­ tion Act, failing that, “make it more democratic.” army. go far beyond the negative posi­ into the enemy's territory. circles, from which he recently returned after sev­ port system with particularly vi­ tion of combating legislative at­ United action for a rise in wages A PM ’s foreign policy is: 1. Keep America Out of 6. Full equality for Negroes in the armed forces— eral years. In addition, he is just the type through cious black-listing provisions. tacks when they are sprung on commensurate with the enormous war. 2. No aid to Britain until she practices the Down with Jim Crowism. > maritime labor. The idea behind democracy she preaches. 3. Real aid to China. 4. which the GPU maintains its connections with the rising profits of the shipowners is OMNIBUS BILL the Navy’s strategy is to keep labor one thing they must take the of­ Friendship with the Soviet Union. 5. Complete em­ 7. An end to secret diplomacy. The strategists behind the Dirk­ American party: he never had the slightest spark on edge, to retain initiative on fensive on. bargo against Japan and Spain. sen Bill have thus included in it 8. A peoples’ referendum on any and all wars. of idealism in him, was a cynical observer, then the side of the shipowners and the Still more important is a drive W ith the exception of the call for friendship with every last anti-union measure a beneficiary in terms of higher posts, of the ex­ brass hats, to use the element of to organize into the unions the the Soviet Union (i.e., another pact like that with fought by maritime labor in the surprise with which to wear down pulsions of left and right wing from the Gommun- increasing number of merchant Laval or Hitler) there is not a single plank in the AT HOME: past few years. This time they the seamen’s resistance. ships that are now being transfer­ ist Party. Just the man for this d irty job. entire platform that every drooling pacifist in the hope the hue and cry about “na­ The unanimity with which red into the Army and Navy F o r: country couldn’t support with both hands and both' The crux of Garlin’s article is the following as­ tional defense” will help push it the maritime unions have ris­ transport service and, under the t. A job and decent living for every worker. sertion : through where it failed previously. en up against the enact­ Naval Reserve, into the auxiliary lungs. As Dr. W alter Scott Neff, executive Secretary of A PM ’s New York Council, said in a published ad­ 2. Thirty-thirty—530 weekly minimum wage—30 “ K rivitsky left three letters, containing Each and every section of this ment of the Dirksen Bill is service of the Navy. By taking the Bill is an. intended blow to union­ ground for a belief that the dress, “The American Peace Mobilization is not de­ hour weekly maximum for all workers on all jobs. intimate personal details clearly proving offensive on these objectives now, / ism on the high seas. It is no vast majority of the rank and file the unions can make the shipown­ signed to serve the interests of any special part of 8. $30 weekly old age and disability pension. his plan to end his own life” ... wonder then, that without excep­ of American seamen are aware of ers and the brass hats too busy the people— it exists for all of America.” Neither tion every union of seafaring men the danger and are in a fighting 4. Full social, political and economic equality for the A very risky assertion! An indiscretion for to get on with their present vi­ from Dr. Neff, nor from APM as a whole, is there a which he may pay to Stalin with his head—Garlin —AFL as well as CIO, National mood. No matter what differences cious legislation. breath of the class struggle. Negro people. Maritime Union as well as Sailors exist between CIO and AFL, in or the GPU agent who dictated it. For who is Gar­ As in all struggles,_ for the sea­ “The Yanks are not coming,” “Keep America out 6. Workers Defense Guards against vigilante and Union of the Pacific and Seafar­ this field, and there are plenty, men too the best defense is the lin, or his superior, to judge whether or not the of W ar,” are the two chief slogans shouted at all fascist attacks. ers International Union, etc. — no matter how foul the past rec­ offensive. “ personal detafls” were actually “ intimate,” i.e., APM demonstrations. By these slogans the Stal­ 6. A twenty-billion dollar Federal public works and true? Krivitsky’s wife says they are not, and so inists are exploiting the masses’ natural love for housing program to provide jobs for the unem­ does Suzanne LaFollette, as we report! elsewhere in peace and diverting it from its proper channel---the ployed. this issue. Is this another one of those instances class struggle. Lenin often warned of “dull-witted and Ford’s Anti-Union Game treacherous slogans of peace.” In 1915, when fighting 7. Expropriate the Sixty Families. in which the vainglorious boasting of the GPU to stem the rising tide of social patriotism then 8. An Independent Labor Party based on the Trade shows its hand in the murder? Has Garlin read sweeping the Second International, he wrote, “Avoid Unions. numerous GPU reports on K rivitsky’s personal all pacifist snares . . . A clear, full, exact declaration life and habits, his manner of speaking and w rit­ 9. A Workers’ and Farmers’ Government. Is To Divide The Races of principles is more important for us than anything. ing, his relations w ith his wife and son, etc. etc., Without this all the so called programs of action are that Garlin is so certain that the “ personal, in­ By ALBERT PARKER lows ' from that, according to from Ford’s service men, and en­ mere phrases, mere deceptions.” timate details” were well-sprinkled into the “ let­ For a long time it has been a Marshall? That the union which joy a wage which is about ten ters” ? practice in this country for the Knudsen fought so bitterly is res­ cents an hour below that of work­ Like A ll Previous Stalinist “ F ro n ts ” < bosses to refuse to hire Negro 2. The second of the Daily Worker’s alibis for ponsible for this situation which ers in other automobile plants." Stalinism has always turned to the “good” bour­ workers in their plants, placing existed long before the union was geoisie for support against war. The Amsterdam Stalin takes the form of the leading editorial in the blame for this on the white founded. WHY NEGROES HESITATE Congress Against W ar, the Paris Congress Against that issue, with the heading, "... M y Sins Are workers! Thus the bosses stored Cayton explains clearly why Ne­ FORD THREATENS NEGROES Fascism, and the American League for Peace and Fight The GPU! Big.” In the text of the editorial appeats the fo l­ up a labor force among the Ne­ gro workers are hesitant about W aller K rivitsky was no friend of ours. On the groes that could be used for un­ He finished this attack by mak­ joining the union. First, of all, Democracy were all organized by the Third Inter­ lowing: ing a not-too-veiled hint that if national and remain classic examples of the replace­ contrary, he was a political enemy. Me had been ion-smashing and strike-breaking they’re glad they’ve got jobs, and “ K rivitsky tells the last chapter of the when the white workers began to the Negro workers in Ford’s they’re not sure that Ford would ment of revolutionary class struggle by vague, class­ too long in Stalin’s service (it is unlikely that story with the words: ‘I think my sins are organize. On certain occasions, plants didn’t support him, they keep them on if the union won less (i.e., bourgeois-pacifist) formulatiohs. The hetero­ would be sorry: K rivitsky himself would have taken the initiative big.’ employers have brazenly referred out. Secondly, the Negro is under geneous elements artificially brought together by to this policy of creating resent­ “The open shop of Henry Ford terrific pressure from Harry Ben­ to leave that service; he did so only when he felt “The truth was told in these words by back-stage manipulation scattered in all directions ment between black and white has two Negroes out there to see nett's thugs and from Donald once they were confronted with a concrete war aris­ a petty adventurer... Krivitsky wgs a pet­ that the Negroes get at least part Marshall and the other “leaders.” himself endangered by the great purges) and it had as “strike insurance.” ing from capitalist contradictions. This disintegra­ ty tool, but his, use was big. l ie began to of their rights (meaning himself Thirdly, they don’t know whether left in his bones the outlook of the bureaucrat: he Henry Ford has played a shrewd tion of forces, this demoralizaton and disorientation understand his role and he tried to tell wdiy variation of this same game. Real­ and his assistant). The Negro will they can trust the unions, because had little faith in the capacity of the proletarian of the proletarian elements, will be repeated in APM. he ‘had to go.’ . . . That lie became sick of izing that the time would come- regret the day if he helps to turn many of them have had experi­ The replacement of a fighting agreement of working masses. That is why he became a supporter of the his role is understandable even when one when the unions would begin to the Ford shop over to the CIO.” ences of discrimination, or have heard of discrimination, by white class organizations against war, by a bloc with petty- “ democracies.” He looked to them to institute his knovys the type of tool he was.” make some headway in organizing By this he meant that if the his Empire, he began to employ CIO organizes the Ford plants, workers even in the union move­ bourgeois pacifists always leads to the adoption of notion of liberty in Europe. He never grasped the As Suzanne LaFollette pointed out in our in­ Negroes in his plants, to • build Ford will have no further use ment. the tactics of the pacifists. - Trotskyist analysis of the degeneration of the terview with her, (reported elsewhere in this issue), up the idea that he was a friend for Negroes and will try to get In this situation, it is impera­ APM has been prodigious in its production of rid of them. " It will be a sad day tive that the CIO pay special at­ pamphlets, leaflets, letters, etc. In all this output Soviet regime, a degeneration which flows pre­ precisely this phrase in the K rivitsky “ letters”— and benefactor of the Negro peo­ “ M y sins are big”— is the most indicative of GPU ple and deserved their support in for us if the Ford Company tention to the Negro workers. there is no word of revolutionary internationalism, cisely from the fact that the “ democracies” — in his bitter struggles against union­ changes its policy,” moaned the True, R. J. Thomas, president of authorship of the text of those notes. She says it no word of proletarianism. In a pamphlet entitled the “ democratic” period of 1918-1933— exerted ization. Rev. Mr. Bradby, to emphasize the the UAW, has written a letter “Foreign Policy and Peace,” Dr. N eff is quoted as was utterly unlike K rivitsky to say that, even if point. He established a special division which has received some publi­ saying, “It is my job to speak for all... for working their utmost pressure to destroy the Soviet Union, he were going to commit suicide. Weighed down of employment, of colored person­ city, in which he promises that TASK OF CIO people, organized and unorganized, for the young and first by using their own armies and financing the intolerably with the pressure of being hounded, he nel and through this began to hire there will be no discrimination by Horace R. Cayton, one of the the union against Negro Ford the old, for women as for men, for the Jews and the White armies, then by economic pressure. The iso­ might kill himself, but under no conditions is it Negroes in large numbers. Today it is estimated that he has 10,000 authors of “Black Workers in the workers. He urges that those who Negroes, and for all national and religious groups.” conceivable that he would die leaving behind him New Unions,” has in two articles lation of the Soviet Union in a hostile capitalist Negro employes, representing are interested should check in the Just about everybody! Who makes war, then? Even in recent issues of the Pittsburgh a note thus repudiating his work of the last years about 10%- of his labor force. As other plants that have been or­ his phraseology is borrowed from the capitalist world gave rise to Stalinism. K rivitsky didn’t un­ Courier dealt with the subject,in and im plicitly justifying Stalin— the implication part of his plan Ford has also ganized and determine for them­ politicians: In picturing the consequences of war, he a way that could be of use to the derstand this, his years as a Stalinist bureaucrat which the Daily Worker brings out very well and contributed to certain Negro selves whether the Negro worker says, “The American way of life . . . will perish abso­ CIO in tackling this problem. prevented him from understanding this, and he with complete accuracy. We can add to what Miss churches, organizations and in­ has be’en discriminated against. lutely.” dividuals. After explaining how Ford by "They will find upon checking that passed into the camp o f the Social-Democratic LaFollette says the testimony of those of us who bis financial contributions has in the Detroit plauts Negroes now Pious Appeals to M orality agents of the “ democratic” imperialists. knew Krivitsky: he was utterly incapable of such UNCLE TOM BANQUET "given substance to the myth that receive more money and have bel­ APM is so far from a class outlook that it sums up a death-lied “ repentance.” A highlight in Fords’ anti-un­ Ford had a sympathetic interest ter jobs than they had prior to But the revelations he made concerning the its arguments in terms of abstract morality. In the But if Krivitsky was incapable of it, that was ion campaign was a recent ban­ in Mie problems of the Negro,” the advent of the union ...” quet for 300 people in Detroit by pamphlet “What is A PM ” we find this, “The issues methods and techniques which he had employed as and showing that “many Negro But when the scoundrels who no deterrent to the GPU. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Buk­ Donald J. Marshall, director of on which APM is ready to fight are simple ones— professional men and Negro load­ call themselves leaders arc so ac­ head of Stalin’s secret service in Europe have been harin, Rakovsky, and all the other did Bolsheviks colored personnel for the Ford ers who lived on the back of these tive in prejudicing the Negroes the sort of issues for which decent people have always of great value to the working class. Independently Motor Company. / murdered in the Moscow “ Trials” were also in­ Ford employees, fearful of any­ against the union, it is not enough been ready to fight.” Capitalists and coupon clippers of Krivitsky’s politics—it would be even more ac­ capable of such "repentance” and justification of In attendance was “nearly ev­ thing which might disrupt (even to suggest that “anyone who is. are not excluded from A P M ’s circle of “decent Stalin. Nevertheless it was put into their mouths. ery colored minister in the city, momentarily) their sources of in­ concerned about such rumors, (of people.” curate to say in spite of Krivitsky’s politics, for come, are violently pro-Ford and Read the reports of the Moscow Frameup Trials who came al special invitation to discrimination) check in other au­ You will search APM in vain for a ghost of a workers who, like ourselves, remain defenders of get. the free meal and to listen to anti-union,” Cayton goes on: tomobile plants ...” Every one shadow of a proletarian program. No mention of the of 1937 and 1938, and you will find, over and over Marshall's harangue against the the Soviet Union, sometimes found difficulty in “Ford’s policy toward the Ne- of the 10,000 Negro workers in class need for military training for workers under again, exactly the same pattern as is found in this CIO. Those Negro ministers in I groes, however, is one that had Ford is very much concerned trade union control; no mention of expropriating the separating K rivitsky’s political animu's from his “ repentant” note of Krivitsky. Then and now, Detroit who have expressed sym­ been born of self-interest and has about these vicious rumors. To Sixty Families or the war industries; no manifesto factual evidence— his description of the GPU Stalin finds it not enough to murder his victims: pathy for the CIO were not in­ not offered the Negro much ex­ tell them to go and check in the against capitalism. No word but “peace.” A groveling, they must also absolve Stalin of wrongdoing on vited; of them it was said, “The cept employment. That Ford lias other automobile plants is not ve­ methods have taught the ,advanced workers how time has come to let our unfaith­ hypocritical peace built upon the quicksands of the their death-beds. hired more Negroes than other ry helpful. It is up to the UAW to guard themselves against Stalin’s murder- ful leaders know We do not need companies is a matter of fact. to bring them the proofs that there profit system. The experiences of the last war, the machine. That machine has succeeded in murder­ There is a distinct aura of insanity to this them." He has done this, however, to will be no discrimination, and to rich revolutionary heritage of Lenin, have been thrust -Stalinist pattern. Having burned their fingers so “We are appealing to the min­ provide himself with ‘strike in­ aside. ing Krivitsky, as it did Trotsky. No protection: spend a lot of time combatting badly with using that pattern in the 1937-38 trials, isters to try to help us keep our surance.’ these rumors and spreading the There is no doubt that this pacifist propaganda of feet on the ground.” said Marshall. against the assassination of an individual can be “It. is the testimony of most truth that, as Cayton puts it, “the the Stalinists is now having a certain success: it cor­ in the "letter” of Rudolph .Klement. in the “ con­ He then launched an attack on perfect, especially when the assassination machine persons familiar with the Ford CIO has made a desperate effort responds to the immature outlook of a section of the fession” of the assassin Jacson, etc., the GPU the unions in which he blamed plant that Negroes are definitely to break down color barriers and workers, enabling them thus to express their hatred has at its disposal the resources of a state power. forgers did not dare go so far in Krivitsky’s case them because Negroes are not hir­ limited in their ability to be pro­ it presents the greatest hope for of war. 1 hese same workers, however, will tomorrow But many will be saved by what Krivitsky was as to mention Stalin by name. But all their past ed in great numbers in the other moted within the Ford plant and Negro laborers since the Knights crimes require, in each new crime, new justifica­ auto plants. are pretty largely confined to the of Labor” and that “certainly Ne­ begin to face the fundamental question: HOW to real­ able to tell before he was murdered. tion and, despite their caution, they were driven For instance, he showed that lower v/age income brackets. gro workers in the Ford plant will ly fight against the imperialist war. The Stalinist pacifist propaganda retards the development of these Although we were political opponents, we were to make K rivitsky “ repent” as did all his pre­ Knudsen, now head of the Na­ I "Likewise, all workers in the suffer greatly, both as workers tional Defense Commission, had Ford plant, including Negro work­ and as Negroes, in the long yun workers, but it cannot prevent it. Tomorrow these ready to do anything in our power to save K rivit­ decessors. Here is the cloven'hoof peeping out of refused to let Negroes hold skilled ers, suffered from the speed up, if they are instrumental in de­ workers will turn to us, to the Leninist answer to sky. We had in common with him at least this: the Stalinist alibi. jobs in General Motors. What fel­ the possibility of brutal treatment feating unionism in Ford’s plants.” imperialist war.