Statement of the Workers (Communist) Party on the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua and support for two marines who deserted to Sandino’s guerillas.

‘Not a Man–Not a Dollar for Imperialist Nicaragua War’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 6. January 9, 1928.

AS President Coolidge departs for Havana to attend the Sixth Pan-American Conference, 1,000 marines embark for Nicaragua to help crush the Nicaraguan people struggling to regain their liberty.

The Pan-American Conference, previously decked with flowery words of “good will” and “Pan-American cooperation,” opens in the midst of an actual imperialist, Wall Street war of aggression against Latin-America. The true meaning of Pan-Americanism is clear.

American Imperialist Hypocrisy.

 American capitalism and the United States government as a whole must take full responsibility for the crime. The United States senate, after private agreement between the leaders of both the republican and democratic parties, abruptly adjourned its sessions to prevent discussion on resolutions which had been submitted against intervention in Nicaragua!

This particular war, this war which is actually taking place, cannot be debated—even in the United States senate! Oh, no, “it may embarrass the president at Havana.” What the senator who pronounced those words meant was that it might expose too clearly the president at Havana, might expose what American imperialism is doing under the hypocritical slogan of Pan-Americanism.

Latin-American affairs play an important role in all foreign policy of the Wall Street government at the present time.

It is noteworthy that even in these hypocritical proposals of treaties which Secretary Kellogg makes to France, it is stipulated that the provisions for arbitration do not apply to the Monroe-Doctrine zone of American imperialism in Latin-America.

American foreign policy conceives of Latin-America as the cornerstone of a politico-economic American empire which can be thrown into the scales against the European empires in the struggle for world domination.

That President Coolidge himself, accompanied by an impressive delegation sees fit to make the trip to Havana, is an earnest of the rapid unfolding of the new drive to subjugate Latin-America.

Can’t Hide Crimes in Nicaragua.

But it is an earnest of something else as well. The delegation has been selected with such care because any American delegation at any Pan-American Conference just now will have its hands full in parrying the increasingly insistent counter-attacks of the representatives of a now thoroughly aroused Latin-America. Even though the U.S. state department has already exercised great care and brought all the weights of its influence to bear in determining that the representatives of Latin-American governments at Havana will be unable to speak out plainly, the mass sentiment in Latin-America is so great that unless every precaution is taken, the conference is likely to break up under the weight at protest The question of Nicaragua is not on the order of business. However, three Latin-American governments have already presented proposals for taking up the question of intervention in Latin-America. The United States delegation will do everything in its power to prevent such an “improper” discussion from disturbing the harmony of the gathering.

The Havana Conference—A War Conference.

But the ghost of Nicaragua will haunt the sessions of the Pan-American Conference at Havana. The criminal war cannot be ignored. The bloody invasion of Nicaragua remains the true expression of United States policy in Latin-America. It is Pan-Americanism and the Monroe Doctrine in practice. Neither the frantic efforts of the state department spokesmen, nor the landing of Wall Street’s proudest military aviator at Havana, can do more than emphasize the hypocritical aggressive purposes which are hidden beneath the term “Pan-Americanism.”

Pan-Americanism means subjection of Latin-America to the United States.

Under the present circumstances there can be no Pan-American conference which the United States government does not dominate and use to further its imperialistic plans.

American imperialism is today everywhere on the offensive. The rape of Nicaragua, a new drive against Mexico, intensified measures for exploitation of Haiti and Santo Domingo, sugar trust support of the Machado dictatorship in Cuba, these and similar acts adequately characterize the relationship which the United States government desires to establish with the peoples of Latin-America.

The Pan-American question is no longer a debate. It is a war.

Latin-Americans may follow with interest everything that takes place—and that does not take place—at Havana, but their hearts will be with General Augustino Sandino, fighting with his back to the wall in a little corner of Nicaragua against the biggest imperialist power of the world, the imperialist enemy of all Latin-America.

Wall Street’s Pan-Americanism—A Menace!

The Pan-American path of Wall Street and Washington is no less a menace to the working class of the United States. It is part of the world policy of imperialist aggression which carries with it the certainty of bitter international conflict and world war. The workers of this country have no interest in the Wall Street program of world domination. Their interests are with the workers and the oppressed of all lands, against Wall Street, against imperialism.

Workingmen and workingwomen!  Our Nicaraguan brothers are now being murdered by the same capitalists that are starving thousands of locked-out miners in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The marines murdering liberty-loving workers and farmers in the mountains of Nicaragua are serving the same class which is murdering defenseless, striking coal-diggers in the hills of Colorado. The imperialist clique which has mobilized gunmen, troops and injunction judges against our brothers at home, is now rushing warships and marines to mow down, to kill in cold blood, our heroic brothers in Nicaragua.

Workers! The Nicaraguan working-men and farmers are fighting our fight. They are waging one of the most inspiring battles in history. We must do our bit. We must help them win!

Messrs. Green and Woll and their fake Pan-American Federation of Labor are criminally lined up on the side of the imperialist butchers of Nicaragua. Green and Woll are high-priced agents of Wall Street.

No Scabbing on Nicaraguan Workers!

The workers must take matters into their own hands. The American workers must act and act decisively and speedily. Some of the American marines have already set a noble example for all of us. Two American marines have thrown away the banners of Wall Street tyranny and have gone over to the side of the Nicaraguans, led by Sandino—to the side of liberty.

This act of the two American marines is one of the noblest deeds in all American history. Every American worker should applaud it heartily, should draw inspiration and courage from it, and should pitch in to support the struggle against imperialist aggression.

The workers at the port of Corinto are striking. The Nicaraguan workers are refusing to carry ammunition to the American military forces sent to kill their brothers. The Corinto workers are refusing to be strike breakers. They are refusing to scab against the courageous enemies of American imperialism.

What should the American workers do?

We must follow the example of those American brothers, those marines who refused to shoot down the fighters for liberty and who dedicated their lives to give battle to American imperialism. We must do what the Nicaraguan workers did at Corinto. We must not scab against our brothers. We American workers cannot and will not be strikebreakers.

No worker should raise a finger to make or move munitions for shooting down the heroic Nicaraguans led by Sandino.

All support to General Sandino, who is fighting our fight!

Not a man, not a dollar for the imperialist war on Nicaragua!

All together for a powerful united front of the workers and farmers to paralyze the strangling hand of the American imperialist clique, the capitalist rulers in Nicaragua, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Colorado, in Cuba and wherever Wall Street tyranny undermines the welfare of the working masses.

CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY OF AMERICA

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n006-NY-jan-09-1928-DW-LOC.pdf