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From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 11, 22 February 1933, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Cleveland. – At a big demonstration called by the Unemployed Council on Market Square (West Side) today, workers protesting against Mayor Miller’s “plan” for forced labor and demanding cash relief from the city-controlled Associated Charities, also echoed the cry for solidarity with the German proletariat faced with the attempt of the Fascist Hitler regime to exterminate their organizations, to suppress their military and to prepare Germany for a spearhead position in an imperialist aggression against the workers’ fatherland – the USSR.
On the march to the Square and at the demonstration, prominent banners were displayed linking the struggle of the unemployed with the flight against German Fascism, with such slogans as: “In Cleveland – Miller wants Forced Labor. In Germany – Hitler”, “Long Live the International Solidarity of the German and American Workers against Forced Labor, against Hitler and Fascism”.
On the Square, after speeches by unemployed militants and party members, comrade Sam Gordon of the Left Opposition was asked by party workers and sympathizers to address the crowd. In a short, but impassioned speech, the comrade from the Left Opposition sounded the call for active support of the German proletariat in their desperate struggle against the Hitler hordes. He showed the relation between the struggle of the American unemployed and the German workers, pointing out the meaning of Hitler’s coming into power, showing the danger of a Fascist German attack against the Soviet Union. Exposing the role of the yellow German social democracy in paving the road for Fascism he continued with an explanation of the need for the immediate establishment of a united front against the Hitler hordes which the Communist party alone can do by directly challenging the social democratic fakers to join in the fight, in this way showing the way out to the socialist workers and arousing their pressure against the leadership. He called upon the workers present to demand that the Communist party take this course and ended up with a cheer for the international solidarity of the working class in the struggle against hunger, war and Hitlerism. The speech was greeted with a good round of applause.
A march followed to the headquarters of the Associated Charities at which a Committee of unemployed presented demands.
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