WHAT'S AHEAD FOR PARTITIONED PALESTINE? NEW by AI Findley " INTERNATIONAL

WHY WALLAC~ IS RUNNING Notes of the Month • THE NEO·ST ALINIST TYPE A Preliminary Discussion • TOWARD A RE·UNITED INDIA by Henry Judd • PERON: ARGENTINE SUB·IMPERIALIST by Luis Velasco • CONNOLLY-NATIONALIST J..~D INTERNATIONALIST by James T. Farrell • NOT BY POLITICS ALONE • •• JANUARY 1948 by Leon Trotsley • TWENTY -FIVE CENTS BOOKS IN REVIEW CORRESPONDENCE THE NEW INTERNATIONAL MEMO A Monthly Organ of RevolutIonary Mardi" We presume it's quite unnecessary for us to draw your at­ Whole No. 122 Vol. XIV. No.1 JANUARY. 1948 tention to the revolution that has taken place on the cover of the NI. . . . The old masthead has been going strong for six Published monthly, except May and June, by the New Inter­ national Publishing Co. at 114 West 14th Street, New York 11, years (it came in with the January 1942 issue) and we thought N. Y. Re-entered as second-class matter June 30, 1947, at the we'd pension it off .... Besides the reversing of the masthead post office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. (black on white) and the smaller type used for articles, we Subscription rates: $2.00 per year; bundles, 15c for five cople8 might add that the new look means a more uniform arrange­ and up. Foreign, $2.25 per year; bundles, 20c for five and up. Address all editorial and business communications to The ment of the cover from month to month.... There's no use New International, 4 Court Square, Long Island City 1, N. ¥. concealing the fact that we think it's great, but we'd be glad Telephone: IRonsides 6-5117. to hear from you about it. The preparation of the article by Max Shachtman on "One Editorial Board Hundred Years of Marxism," in commemoration of the cen­ HAL DRAPER ERNEST ERBER MAX SHACHTMAN tenary of the Communist Manifesto, has been interrupted by Staff Camrade Shachtman's tour of the Workers Party branches on REVA CRAINE CHARLES EVANS HENRY JUDD the west coast ..... It's still pending... - A coming issue will Managing Editor: HAL DRAPER also contain a round-up review of articles on the anniversary Business Manager: PAUL BERN in the periodical press, reading from left to right There are two more essays which we want to excerpt from Trotsky's book Problems of Life (see the first, "Not by Poli­ tics Alone .... ", in this issue) .... One discusses the effect of TABLE OF CONTENTS the Russian Revolution on the institution of the family, and the other is on the 'church and the movies as channels of edu­ cation and propaganda. .. They're ready but unscheduled. NOTES OF THE MONTH ...... ~ The current series of articles by James T. Farrell on the great Irish revolutionist, James Connolly, will remind our readers of Farrell's interesting article on James Larkin last TOWARD A RE-UNITED INDIA ...... 10 year .... Both will appear as part of a book to be entitled Irish Essays~ which will also discuss James Joyce among others. By Henry Judd Among our contributors in this issue ... Luis 'Velasco is a South American Marxist who has been a frequent contribu­ tor to the NI. We should mention, perhaps, that his thought­ PERON: ARGENTINE SUB-IMPERIALIST ...... 14 provoking article in this number was written primarily as a By Luis Velasco discussion of social-structural changes in Latin America, not as a discussion of Peron the individual. ... Henry Judd is a mem­ ber of the NI editorial staff and at present acting editor of WHAT'S AHEAD FOR PALESTINE? ...... 18 Labor Action~' author of India in Revolt. As readers of both publications know, he is the leading American Marxist anal­ By A I Findley yst of the problems of India.... James M. Fenwick runs the column "Off Limits" in Labor Action on matters of interest to GIs. He is also the Newark organizer of the Workers Party. CONNOLLY-NATIONALIST AND ... Al Findley is a regular writer for Labor Action on the INTERNATIONALIST ...... 21 Jewish question .. By James T. Farrell SUBSCRIBE NOW THE NEO-ST ALINIST TYPE ...... 24 The NEW INTERNATIONAL By Hal Draper, J. M. Fenwick and Irving Howe 4 Court Square Long Island City 1. N. Y. NOT BY POLITICS ALONE ...... 29 Please enter my subscription for: By Leon Trotsky o 1 year, $2; 0 6 months, $1.25; 0 3 years, $5

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VOL XIV JANUARY. 1948 NO. 1 NOTES OF THE MONTH

Truman's Christmas Gift and Altgeld's Anniversary-Parti. tion and the Division of the Globe - Leon Blum's "Third Force"-Compulsory Free Trade at Havana-The Politics of Anti·'nflation-Why Wallace Is Running

Altgeld and Amnesty. There were two events in De­ individual conscientious objection as a means of opposing war, cember which were outwardly unconnected but deserve to be but we are obliged to denounce Truman's Christmas gift as a mentioned together. One was the centenary of the birth of piece of detestable hypocrisy and spiteful vengeance (more John Peter Altgeld on December 30, 1847. At a memorial meet­ than two years after the war is safely won for Wall Street, ing in Chicago his name was lauded by men who, a half cen­ tool). Thanks for nothing, Mr. President I tury earlier, would have been among the mob hanging him in effigy (we mean Republican Governor Dwight Green, for • example). Three Partitions. It happens that there are two articles For Altgeld was the Illinois governor who in 1893 brought in this issue both of which deal with the necessity of national the hell-fire of the bourgeois world down on his head by par­ re-unification-in Palestine and in India. THE NEW INTERNA­ doning three men-three anarchists. These were the victims of TIONAL has dealt before with the same question in partitioned the famous Haymarket Affair of 1886; or rather, those three Germany. Here are three major areas of the world where the of the frame-up victims who were not hanged like Parsons and aftermath of the imperialist war has created artificial state August Spies in the lynching spree that followed the explosion boundaries where none existed before, dividing and splitting. of the bomb during the demonstration for the eight-hour day. It is symptomatic of the degeneration of the capitalist world A year later Altgeld refused to use the National Guard to we live in. break the "Debs Rebellion," the great Pullman strike; Presi­ Before the First World War the classic example of a par­ dent Cleveland had to send in federal troops to do the dirty titioned country was unhappy Poland, parceled out to Russia, job. The bourgeoisie has taken forty-six years to forgive him, Germany and Austria. Liberal, not to speak of radical, opin­ now that he is quiet and dead. ion pointed to it as a living accusation against imperialism. We are well aware that Altgeld was not the knight in shin­ But even after that imperialist war and the equally imperialist ing armor he has sometimes been depicted, that he knew also treaty of Versailles, one Poland emerged. Today we have four how to be a conniving politician and an opportunist. He was, Germanies, two Pales tines, and two and a half Indias. Where after all, only a liberal bogged down in the sticky business of before Lenin spoke of the division of the world by the im­ being a "practical" operator in capitalist politics. But in the perialists, they are now dividing the divisions. One product light of the second December event we want to mention, his clearly not manufactured by the United Nations is-united name is a rather honorable one. nations. President Truman also faced a problem of pardoning men Capitalism is in retreat from its early-day task of furthering in jail, or men who had been under arrest during the war, for national unification and erasing petty national boundaries. no crime committed: the conscientious objectors of World The unification of Italy and of the German states was the War II. Just before Christmas, he made known his glad cheer: achievement of nineteenth-century capitalism; the fratricidal an amnesty (full pardon) for only 1,523 out of 15,805 cases warfare of Arab against Jew and Hindu against Moslem is the reviewed. Clemency was extended to religious COs, but the achievement of capitalism today. But this does not simply political and non-religious COs were explicitly excluded from represent a reversion to an outlived state of affairs; history the benefaction and their appeal rejected. does not really repeat itself, since the context changes. The On what ground was the distinction made? The Presi­ atomization of peoples now under way is only the other face dent"s committee said: these men have dared to put their own of the coagulation of world power into two great clots, Amer­ political or social views above the wisdom of the state-imper­ iran and Russian. missible, a bad example. But did not the religious variety also We remember the absolute monarch who wished that the put their own views and interpretations above not only the people, that great beast, had but one neck so that he could state but also their own church, which in most cases did not cut off its head in one stroke. The hydra heads of modern im­ tell them to refuse arms? perialism are reducing themselves more and more to only a As is well known, we do not agree with the futile policy of pair. They thereby 100m above us as all the more fearsome monsters; but it is the revolution of the peoples that raises the COMPULSORY FREE TRADE little men of society to even greater towering heights. When the latter unite from below under the leadership of a rising The most cynical sideshow in the working class, there will be only two strokes of the sword. UN is going on at Havana. At the International Trade Con­ ference there, the United States delegation is busy winning • the peace-its own peace. Third Force. When Leon Blum-the reformist chief of The issue is exceedingly simple: thirty-six of the fifty-eight the French Socialist Party, who for some reason or other con­ sovereign nations represented are in favor of defending them­ tinues to believe that he believes in socialism-appeared be­ selves against U. S. economic penetration by tariff protection fore the Chamber of Deputies as candidate for premier, he and import restrictions-naturally, tariffs and restrictions on made a speech calling for the formation of a "third force," U. S. goods in the first place. Therefore, evidently from the which would oppose both de Gaulle and the Stalinists. loftiest motives of world peace and harmony, the good neigh­ During the recent war we said that we stood for the "third bors from up north take an opposite view of what should be camp," which, we explained, meant that we gave no support clone. either to the camp of Allied or to the camp of Axis imperial­ They are for the creation of an International Trade Or­ ism, but represented the revolutionary interests of the work­ ganization with real authority to reduce national restrictions ing class against both rival groups of exploiters. on trade. The line-up: the U. S., England and most Western What concerns us is not the superficial resemblance in European nations versus nearly all the economically backward phrase but the enlightening difference in the content of the countries of Latin America and the Near East, led apparently phrases, and the opportunity it presents to underline the by Argentina. meaning of the third-camp position. The argument of the latter bloc is also simple. It was For Leon Blum, the other two forces are reaction on the given a century and a half ago by Alexander Hamilton in his one hand (de Gaulle) and the revolutionary working class on famous Report on Manufactures: they have to protect their the 'Other (this is the light in which he sees the Stalinists, like "infant industries," industrialize their economies, cease to be all reformists). We do not have to reiterate here our view that agricultural dependencies of Wall Street. This argument is the French Communist Party is capable only of parasitically reinforced by an even stronger one: namely, this bloc has an feeding on the militancy of the workers whenever this jibes easy majority of the conference. with Russian imperialist needs; that it uses the revolutionary Filibustering for the minority is Clair Wilcox, acting working class only as a base of operations and a eat's paw, chairman of the U. S. delegation. He has two themes. One is ready to betray it as fast as Blum himself, though in a different strictly for the use of the conference stenographers-at any interest; that the recent push of the Stalinists in Western Eu­ rate, it goes mainly into the minutes: rope is from their side an expression of the inter-imperialist If this is to be the outcome of our negotiations here, I say that conflict between the rival Russian and American would-be all our hopes for expanding trade, raising the standard of living, empire builders, grafted on to the legitimate class struggle of promoting economic development and achieving world peace are the proletariat. Though he admits that the CP is only an doomed to failure. agency of the Kremlin, Blum, as a fossilized reformist, cannot The stumbling-block is the fact that the majority coun­ resist the opportunity to tar the rebellious militancy of the tries are in favor of expanding their own trade, raising their workers with the brush of Stalinist totalitarianism. own standard of living, promoting their own economic devel­ On the basis of this attempt to maintain the untenable opment-and nobody is very much interested in world peace. status quo as against both capitalist reaction and proletarian And so Wilcox swings that indispensable piece of equipment revolt, Blum sets his "third force" between the two as a mod­ of the good neighbor, the economic big stick. If the ITO is not erator of the forces that are inescapably tearing French society given its teeth, then- apart. Or rather, this is what he hoped to do-it was not even Other countries may be told when they approach us with their he but rather the Popular Republican Schuman who was goods that they can sell to us, but only up to a certain limit. They elected. may be told that they cannot sell to us unless they agree to take specific quantities of specific goods in return. They may be told The third camp of the anti-war socialists was the third that they cannot sell to us unless they modify policies we do not camp of the working class against both rival groups of capital­ like. They may discover, when they attempt to sell in other mar­ ists. The "third force" of Blum is the petty bourgeoisie vainly kets. that we have been there first to freeze them out. trying to hold the balance between working-class revolution Mr. Wilcox happily admitted that the U. S. was prepared and capitalist reaction. It is a dream of a new Popular Front for such a struggle and confident of its ability to withstand without the Stalinists and against them. This "third force" trade limitations better than less developed countries. He tries hopelessly to wedge in as a compromise between force then cleared up certain natural misconceptions by adding: No. I and force No.2. The socialist third camp stands outside HI do not utter these words as a threat . ..." of and fights both, on its own class feet. It remains to add that in spite of his defeat for the premier­ Wilcox Vindicates Engels ship Blum has declared more than once in Le Populaire that The spectacle of protectionist United States appearing as the Schuman government has indeed become his "government the champion of world free trade is a model of bland hypoc­ of the third force," even though it was elected with Gaullist risy, but it is as economically understandable as the position votes. Here is the old spectacle of social-democrats continuing taken by the small-country bloc. to hold on to the coattails of the "defenders" of bourgeois Regarding Jhe latter Karl Marx explained: democracy even as under their eyes the latter accommodate The system of protection was an artificial means of manufac­ themselves to Bonapartist reaction. The position of the third turing manufacturers, of expropriating independent laborers, of camp was never more necessary than in France today. capitalizing the national means of production and subsistence, and

1 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL· JANUARY, 1948 of fOl'Cibly abbreviating the transition from the medieval to the In 1848 Marx opined that "the protective system in these modern mode of production. [Capital.] days is conservative, while the free trade system works destruc­ In his introduction to Marx's pamphlet Free Trade, En­ tively ... and carries antagonism of proletariat and bour­ gels relates how he explained to a Scotch manufacturer why geoise to the uttermost point. In a word, the free trade sys­ the Americans prefer to pay tribute to native industrialists tem hastens the social revolution. In this revolutionary sense when they could buy the same or a better article from England alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of free trade." more cheaply, why they do so in the expectation that in In the present relationship of the forces represented at twenty-five years they would be able to hold their own in the Havana, the objective consequences are no longer the same as open world market. He adds: in 1848 Europe, but the criteria remain. In any case, as Engels pointed out, it is not the job of (say) the Latin American pro­ Protection, being a means of artificially manufacturing manu­ letariat to give purely gratuitous advice to their capitalists on facturers, may, thefore, appear useful not only to an incompletely developed capitalist class still struggling with feudalism; it may how to run their business. also give a lift to the rising capitalist class of a country which, What shall we say, however, of so-called liberals who (po­ like America, has never known feudalism, but which has arrived litely, of course) denounce the small countries at Havana for at that stage of development where the passage from agriculture not submitting to the U. S. plan for economic overlordship, to manufactures becomes a necessity. America, placed in that situ­ ation, decided in favor of protection. Since that decision was car­ echoing Clair Wilcox's hypocrisies about expanding world ried out, the five and twenty years of which I spoke to my fellow trade? We refer to the Nation of January 10. In Wilcox's big traveler have about passed, and, if I was not wrong, protection stick (about which, incidentally, it says not a word) it sees ought to have done its task for America and ought to be now be­ only the herald of the mythical "world federation," of which coming a nuisance. [Our emphasis-Ed.l the International Trade Organization (with canine teeth) is As often, Engels was a bit previous in his time-coefficients, to be the first installment. but it is not just lately that protec60n has become a nuisance There could be no clearer light cast either on the nature of for American capitalism. U. S. unchallenged dominance in contemporary liberalism or on the objective meaning of the the post-war world, however, has now made protectionism an utopian "capitalist world federation" illusion. absolute brake on that further expansion which alone can relieve the pressure of "ever more rapidly increasing and con­ centrating capital.... Thus the passage from a home to an POLITICS OF ANTI·INFLATION export trade becomes a question of life and death for th~ As this is written, the wholesale­ industries concerned; but they are met by the established price index of the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics has rights, the vested interests of others who as yet find protec­ just reached another post-war peak. From 1939 to 1945 this tion either safer or more profiitable than free trade." (Engels.) official index-which studiously avoids taking into considera­ Here are both sides of the question at Havana. Both blocs tion realities like the black market, quality deterioration, elim­ are fighting for life; but life for American capitalism means ination of special discounts and clearouts at reduced prices. unbridled economic rule throughout the world. etc.-rose by some 37 per cent. From January 1946 to last It is true that in a real sense, the small-country demand March, it upped again by 40 per cent. This was one of the for defensive restrictions on imports places a reactionary lim­ sharpest rates of price increase ever recorded in this country. itation on the full flowering of world exchange; in the same Since the beginning of August at least, prices have been sense that Haile Selassie was defending an outlived feudal so­ again rising. As Secretary of Labor Schwellenbach mildly said ciety against Mussolini. World socialism will make restrictive in his annual report to Congress: Whatever wage increases and protectionist practices unnecessary through planned free labor won during the war "generally were erased by the spi­ trade, just as it will make it possible to jerk Ethiopia through raling cost of living." Meanwhile last year's corporate profits telescoped centuries of economic development. But the main are estimated at $17 billion as compared with $12.5 billion in impact of Ethiopia's fight for freedom was the blow it struck 1946; which, in tum ... at the main enemy in the world, imperialism; and the main Another thing which corporate executives do in tum, be­ impact of the small-nation fight at Havana would lie, if suc­ sides raking in profits, is to explain that higher wages mean cessful, in its weakening of the underpinnings of Yankee im­ inflation: when people have more money to spend, they bid perialism and its stimulus to the development of an industrial up prices, etc. But this reasoning is not applied to the largest proletariat in the now backward countries. inflationary factor of this sort-the government's military bud­ get. Today military expenditures are greater than the total Socialist Versus Liberal Policy pre-war national budget I These are orders that go to create These are the objective consequences. "Do not imagine, demand, directly and indirectly, such as bids up the price of gentlemen," said Marx in his above-mentioned speech on free every commodity. trade, "that in criticizing freedom of commerce we have the President Truman rose to the occasion-the threat of in­ least intention of defending protection. One may be opposed flation and the skyrocketing of the cost of living-with charac­ to constitutionalism without being in favor of absolutism." teristic adroitness and clarity. Having, only a few weeks be­ Engels added: fore, gone out of his way to denounce price controls as the instrument of a "police state"-that was 1947-he appeared The question of free trade or protection moves entirely within before Congress with the onset of 1948 to demand the reim­ the bounds of the present system of capitalist production, and has, therefore, no direct interest for us socialists, who want to do away position of partial price control on selected commodities as an with that system. Indirectly, however, it interests us, inasmuch as anti-inflation measure. we must desire the present system of production to develop and The apparent inconsistency immediately disappears when expand as freely and as quickly as possible; because along with it we remember that (1) 1948 is a presidential election year and will develop also those economic phenomena which are its necessary consequences, and which must destroy the whole system, misery of all previous statements are by the rules of the game consid­ the great mass of the people, in consequence of overproduction. ered obsolete; and (2) Truman's demand for partial price con-

THE NEW INTEINATIONAL • JANUAIY, .,41 I trol does not contradict his belief that this means partial po­ Nor is steel the only one in the pillory. A total of 114 anti­ lice control, since the OPA found out in its earliest days that trust cases are now pending against a roster of 1300 companies this kind of price control is unworkable and ineffective-in -big names in auto, meat packing, household appliances, oil, short, a fake. housing, etc. The list reads like a Who's Who of American Besides, he would have been the most surprised Missou­ industry. The charge: monopoly practices linked up with sky­ rian in Washington if the proposal had been accepted by the rocketing price levels. Republican majority. According to the newspapers, some of However, Truman's foresight must be commended at this the GOP leaders even toyed with the idea. of voting in his point. In his "State of the Union" message to Congress, before bastardized price-control proposal just to see Truman out­ he signed the bill exempting the bad big boys from anti-trust smart himself; but that maneuver proved to be too subtle for worries, he had already proposed increasing the funds appro­ the Republican intellect. priated for the Anti-Trust Division of the Justice Department. It is obviously nothing more than even-handed justice to give "Better Than Nothing" trust-busters more money on the one hand, and the monopo­ The latter, equally cognizant of the fact that 1948 is the lists more immunity on the other. This is the system of checks promised year of their re-entrance into the White House, hast­ and balances in the great American tradition. ened to introduce and pass an "anti-inflation" bill also. As if to prove that Truman is really the lesser evil, they did not even CIO Prepares for Wage Fight bother to include fake price-control provisions. This conclu­ Wendell Berge, who until last spring was the head of the sively demonstrated-did it not?-their more reactionary char­ Anti-Trust Division, anticipated these developments in a re­ acter. cent magazine article (Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn, Instead the new law vigorously pleaded with big busines~ 1947): to do voluntarily that which it fought tooth-and-nail against One inevitable by-product of this post-war monopoly drive has being legally required to do: reduce prices and allocate scarce been the number of efforts made to remove whole fields' of produc­ materials fairly. Even this masterly plan they had to steal from tion or economic service from the jurisdiction of the anti-trust laws. lesser-evil Truman, who had already exhausted its possibilities . . . Cartelists count upon the cessation of vigilance directed toward by two appeals to the nation's business men to reduce prices. them .... This effort on the cartel front, however, has been dupli­ cated and even in some respects exceeded by attempts to remove This voluntaristic anti-inflation drive of Truman's took the domestic operation of many fields from the jurisdiction of the place not long before the BLS index resumed its upward anti-trust laws upon one excuse or another. climb. This was merely an unfortunate coincidence. We are not so prejudiced as to believe that Truman's appeals to cut The excuse turned out to be the fight against ... inflation. prices were the cause of the upward climb. This positively invaluable kind of struggle against infla­ Sternly insisting that he was still for price control (non­ tion is spreading to all fronts. General Motors President Wil­ police-state variety), Truman signed the Republican bill with­ son told the NAM recently that the 40-hour week is "inflation­ out more ado. The reason given was that this bill was "better ary" and a stop should be put to it instanter. GM will have than nothing," though nothing was better than price control; the opportunity, too, since its contract with the UAW comes and though nobody could find anything anti-inflationary in up for reopening of negotiations on February 28. And after the bill, it is obvious that to pass a bill is better than to pass a recent meeting of the Wage Policy Committee of the auto no bill. This logic is derived from the famous syllogism which workers, President Reuther made a statement in which he goes as follows: said: Nothing is better than wisdom. The failure of both government and industry to stop inflation Dry bread is better than nothing. leaves labor no choice but to demand and win further wage in­ Therefore, dry bread is better than wisdom. creases in order to restore and maintain the purchasing power workers have lost through skyrocketing prices. This bill which was "better than nothing" immediately justified the faint praise which the President had bestowed The steel union likewise is preparing for a new wage round. upon it. Providing as it did for voluntary allocation agree­ At the moment we will not dwell on the question: Will Reu­ ments by industrialists (uncontrolled by the government and ther again fight for wage increases without price increases1 unenforceable by either government or business), it also had to We will ask another. provide that these industrialists be exempted from the oper­ In the statement quoted above, Reuther also said: ation of the anti-trust laws. Failure of the government to curb the inflation Americans are Here one of the shorter arms of coincidence reached into suffering under today can be attributed directly to unscrupulous the picture. Meeting in Washington almost as fast as they political maneuvering by both the Democratic and Republican Par­ ties. Both parties are playing fast and loose with the welfare of could get there after the anti-anti-inflation bill was passed, the the people in a political chess game whose object is to see which steel corporations got together to discuss their voluntary allo­ party can win more votes on the inflation issue without doing any­ cation program, serene in their new immunity from anti-trust thing about it. persecution. Indeed, the president of United States Steel, Ben­ Very true. Is it therefore Reuther's conclusion that labor jamin Fairless, told the press he wanted a written guarantee must break with these twin betrayers of the welfare of the from the government that his corporation would really be people and build a party of its own? Not that we've heard-n,ot exempt from anti-trust harassment if it enters the voluntary out loud, anyway. Instead, we shall not be amazed to find Reu­ program. ther also rooting for Truman in November. The rationaliza­ The coincidence lay in the fact that not many days later tion for this, we suspect, lies in something like the syllogism the Federal Trade Commission was scheduled to open hear­ we cited above: ings on its charges that 101 steel manufacturing companies Nothing is better than a labor party. had conspired unlawfully to fix prices and stifle all competi­ Truman is better than nothing. tion in the industry. Therefore, Truman is better than a labor party.-Q. E. D. , 6 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL • JANUARr, .9... A logician would point out that the obvious fallacy here York); even previous Stalinist darlings like Senator Pepper; is the use of the word "nothing" in two different senses. Politi­ even more, the bureaucracies of the CIO and AFL unions who cally speaking, that is also what actually happens when the are now reviling Wallace with especial vulgarity - all these logic is put into practice: the workers get two distinctly differ­ are outraged by Wallace's candidacy. ent kinds of "nothing" -the Democratic kind and the Repub­ And what is his crime in their eyes? It is the fact that he lican kind. refuses to support Truman as the "lesser evil" to the Republi­ This is exactly what took place in the recent anti-anti· cans. It is the fact that he is "splitting the ranks of the pro­ inflation melee. gressives," as the refrain goes. It is the fact that Wallace says: "We want a new party, an anti-Wall-Street party, an anti-war party, a party of the common man. The Democrats and Re­ WHY WALLACE IS RUNNING publicans are hopelessly sold to the big interests and cannot be reformed. We must start now to build a party that will It has been said that a politician speak for the workingmen. We cannot wait for 'ideal' condi­ needs three hats: one to throw into the ring, one to talk through, and one to pull rabbits out of. Henry Wallace has tions which never comel" This echoes the healthiest sentiments among the restive the first two; as a result he needs the third more than ever. masses, and if this were the primary content of the Wallace The reaction to Wallace's announcement of his presiden­ movement it would indeed be a landmark in American social tial candidacy already indicates the self-defeating character history. Let there be no mistake about thatl But the truth is of the movement he is evoking. It is a third-party movement, that these fine words have as much meaning in Wallace's but without labor's backing. It is a self-styled "peace move· mouth (or in his politics) as the fine word "socialism" has in ment," but one based on the program of appeasing Russian imperialism. It is a "liberal crusade," but one repudiated by the mouth of his impresario, the Communist Party. For Wallace, the "dominant issue" is what he calls "peace," almost all liberals except the Stalinists' private collection of anointed "progressives." by which he means a policy of stuffing Stalin's belly with "concessions" in power politics so that American imperialism The most wonderful thing about Wallace's strategy is that may suck at the rest of the world undisturbed. He proclaims in one fell swoop he succeeded in alienating more different openly that Truman has only to take a few steps in this direc­ groups, from· more different points of view, than most politi­ tion to cause him to drop all the fine talk about new parties cians can usually do through not less than a half dozen sepa­ and political independence and the need to "stand up and rate blunders. StiIIt the extent to which the "Hight from Wal­ be counted" against Wall Street. His remarks on Taft, dis· lace" by the people with "names" will have its counterpart cussed below, make it crystal-clear that his demagogic appeal among the nameless rank and file is still to be seen; it is by no means to be assumed. to working-class interests is a tactical convenience and not a programmatic principle. • While he has for some time had the dual character of Up to now, Wallace has been riding a wave-in truth, the muddle-headed liberal and Stalinist cat's-paw, like many wave of the future: the feelings of discontent with and sus­ others, in this election he explicitly presents himself to the picion of the increasingly reactionary policies of both old people primarily in the second capacity. parties on the part of the workers and little people of the Wallace's Crime country; the desire to break away from the two-in-one bi-parti­ san sham in Washington; and the instinctive sympathy of the We do not go for the notion that the antagonism of work­ underdogs with one who seemed to stand up and attack both ers to Wallace as a Stalinist stooge springs only from exposure sets of rulers in the name of democracy, peace and security. to the vicious anti-red drive of American reaction. Reaction This is still his strength. The tragedy lies precisely in the is here taking advantage of a fact and playing it for all it is fact that hundreds of thousands of militants, who are ready worth; but it remains a fact. Reaction may take advantage of to follow a strong lead for independent labor political action, workers' healthy hatred for Russian totalitarianism and its do not know anyone else to whom they can look. agents, as it took advantage of their healthy hatred for fas­ cism before and during the recent war; but it is the job of Th.lr Criticism and Ours socialists to disentangle anti-Stalinism from red-baiting as it To these workers Wallace offers not a labor party, not even was our job to disentangle anti-Nazism from warmongering. a labor-based third party, but rather a mugwump movement In the present case it is our job to disentangle labor opposi­ hothouse-forced by the Stalinists. Wallace's stumpers and tion to Wallace as a pro-Stalinist appeaser from opposition door-bell ringers will try to sell this to the trade-union cus­ to him as a "splitter of the progressive front." tomers as "just as good as a labor party." The labor leaders and liberals consciously amalgamate the Will the whole idea of independent political action thus two anti-Wallace motivations. "Look at what Wallace is do­ be tied up with the brand of anti-labor reaction and pro-Rus­ ing," they scream; "he rejects the 'lesser evil' of Truman in sianism which is the Stalinists' reason for existence? Insofar order to pull Russia's chestnuts out of the firel" One is left as this takes place, it can only serve to discredit and taint the to assume that rejecting Truman is equivalent to being a idea of a real labor party and real workers' politics in the "Russia lover." minds of their dupes. Shortsightedly squinting down from their comfortable The labor leaders and liberals who are at present engaged perches on top to the milling mass who are looking for a way in shoveling abuse on Wqllace's head are working to this end out of the bi-partisan blind alley, they are working overtime as busily as are the Stalinists. to convince labor that the idea of independent political action The breakaways from the Progressive Citizens of Amer­ is a Stalinist-invented trap. After only yesterday themselves ica (Kingdon, Crum, Walsh, etc.); from the American Labor denouncing Truman as a strike-breaker, they are now com­ Party (the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' people in New forted by the thought that he is not as big a strike-breaker as

THE NEW INTEINATIONAL • JANUAlr. 1f4. 7 Taft. Voting for the "lesser strike-breaker" is still the intel­ ported-a possible conclusion which he vigorously repudiates lectual height of official CIO-AFL thought in the United but which required, at least, that he run himself. 'Outside of States. It is known here as practicality. himself, he indicates, Taft is the best bet for "peace" (in the We hope that the rank and file of labor will be as solidly Wallacian sense)-and "peace," you will remember, is the su­ anti-Wallace as their leaders, but we do not believe that large preme issue. masses of them will be so from the same smug considerations, Why is Taft, the arch-reactionary, yet the least warmonger­ even if (as we fear) most of them will reluctantly cast their ing of the field of candidates? ballots the same way. Wallace's crime is that, far from offer­ [1] ... he is no.t as vio.lently anti-Russian as are mo.st o.f the ing them a chance to vote between a candidate of their own o.ther po.tential Republican candidates ... and a capitalist candidate, his performance may only obscure [2] ... he is the Republican least likely, amo.ng all tho.se seeking the pressing necessity of the sole immediate solution of labor's the presidential no.minatio.n, to. pursue a fo.reign po.licy backed with dilemma-the formation of a genuine labor party by the trade armed fo.rce, and thus to sharpen the chances fo.r war ... [3] There are two. types o.f Republican candidates to.day. One unions themselves. co.nfo.rms to. the Henry Luce, American Century type, and the o.ther is Taft. The American Century type o.f candidate believes first, last • and all the time, in the "menace o.f co.mmunism." ... This gro.up, We leave for coming issues of THE NEW INTERNATIONAL and their candidates, I look o.n as the mo.st dangero.us in America. any further discussion of Wallace's program and political [4] Taft ... believes that that encro.achment [o.f go.vernment ideas, insofar as he has such. Right now we wish to take up o.n business] can be delayed if o.ur go.vernment has no. active ro.le to. play o.verseas. a question which has been widely raised by the entrance of [5] ... to.day we have Taft standing fo.r a "Little America" and the man into the presidential race. This question is: Why did the who.le Luce stable o.f presidential ho.pefuls fo.r a "Big Amer­ Wallace do it? ica." President Truman belo.ngs to. the "Big America" gro.up just No one can take Wallace's own formal explanation en­ as certainly as Dewey o.r Vandenberg.... They are suited by tern" perament and ambitio.n to. build a stro.ng and expensive mechan­ tirely seriously as the decisive motivation-viz., one must stand ism to. run the wo.rld. up and be counted for what one believes, let the chips fall [6] Co.mpared with the "American Century" adventurers, Taft where they may, etc. This was the obvious sort of thing to say is a tro.glo.dyte o.f prehisto.ric vintage. [Ibid.] once the decision was taken. But Wallace has not been noted This perfectly clear exposition of Taft's relatively peace­ for always standing up and sounding off on what he believed, ful qualifications can be boiled down to one sentence: The except on the subject of the fatherhood of God and the bless­ "Big America" candidates are smart enough to know what edness of the Spirit. It was not very long ago that he was American imperialism's interests require; Taft, on the other himself arguing that he could not bolt the party because of hand, is stupid. (Troglodyte is defined as a cave-dwelling sav­ the danger of "splitting the progressive front." age, any person of primitive or degraded ways of living, or What changed his mind?-assuming it was neither a sud­ an ape.) What better recommendation? den attack of galloping principledness nor a visitation like that of the archangel to Joan of Arc (although in Wallace's Why Stalinists Run Wallace case the second possibility is not to be dismissed lightly.) We forbear from probing Wallace's mental processes any The argument about not "splitting the progressive front," further. A more interesting question obtrudes: Where did whether made by Wallace in his previous incarnation or by Wallace get this interesting inversion of the lesser-evil doc· his ex-friends now, is based on the view of Truman as the trine? "lesser evil" to a Taft. From our discussion thus far, one Certainly not from the Kingdons and Crums of the PCA. might have a right to assume that Wallace has hroken with We suggest further that (well founded as this vi.ew of Taft the sterilizing concept of the "lesser evil" as such, in favor of may be in its essentials) the process of reasoning from these principled politics. This would indeed bea noteworthy step premises to the conclusion that Taft is the lesser evil to Tru­ of ideological emancipation for any man so bourgeois-minded man, as well as the complete de-emphasis of the domestic is­ as Wallace, and even a praiseworthy mark in his favor, how­ sues in favor of a glassy-eyed concentration on the question of ever wrongfully applied. But the assumption would be un­ foreign policy-all this is politically completely alien to lib­ warranted. ~ral patterns of thought. It is not too great a speculative leap to lay it at the door of those who are indeed today Wallace's Troglodyte or Truman? sole political chaperones-the Stalinists.. The fact is that Wallace" is navigating by the light of the The original question is transformed. Not "Why is Wal­ "lesser evil" theory as closely as before; he has merely lace running?" but "Why is the CP running Wallace?" And changed his mind about whose breast the label should be this question can be examined without any psychological pinned on. For Wallace today, the genuine lesser evil is-Taft. probings whatever . . . . if the o.nly cho.ice were between a Truman advo.cating co.m­ (I) The CP is running Wallace because it prefers the elec­ pulso.ry military training and military aid to. reactio.nary regimes and a Taft stro.ng against co.mpulso.ry military training and ship­ tion of a more isolationist Republican to Truman. Wallace, ment o.f arms abro.ad, I wo.uld vo.te fo.r Taft. I have made this state­ of course, cannot be elected, but he can defeat Truman. More ment because I wanted to. emphasize the supreme impo.rtance o.f than that: the very announcement of Wallace's candidacy has peace in the stro.ngest po.ssible way. [Wallace, in the New Repub­ already strengthened the chances of Taft's winning the Re­ lic, December 29. Italics in o.riginal.] publican nomination; the Republicans may feel that they Strong enough-it leaves nothing to be desired when the can afford a less popular candidate. If Truman is defeated, country's "No. I liberal" flatly asserts his preference for the no matter what Republican is elected, the Daily Worker will country's No. I symbol of reaction, as against Truman. The claim that the people have given an implied mandate against startlingness of the antithesis also explains sufficiently, per· the Truman Doctrine and against Truman-Marshall arch­ haps, why this application of the "lesser evil" theory does not imperialism. Stalin has a real interest in. choosing between. a lead him to the conclusion that Taft should actually be sup- Truman and a troglodyte.

8 THE NEW 'NTE.NATIONAI. • JAIIUAlr, .94. (2) The CP is running Wallace because the only alterna­ hope that the Wallace campaign will stimulate the formation live was to run an openly CP candidate. Obviously the Stalin­ and spread of permanent Stalinist-third-party fronts (like the ists could not even dream of supporting Truman while in recently formed California Independent Progressive Party). Europe they busily paint him in black colors as a deep-dyed In the absence of a real labor party or even of a native-spon­ arch-fiend. No matter how great the pressure at home, their sored third party, such groups could funnel social disconten t well developed system of opportunistic adaptation to the labor into the hopper of Stalinist pressure politics. bureaucracy could not carry to this point, where it would con· Rict with the major need of their Russian masters. • Then why didn't the CP run its own party candidate? The One thing is made entirely obvious by the Wallace affair: obvious answer is that as long as Wallace was willing to bite, a new independent party, which seeks to speak for the masses this was unnecessary. But in addition, an open CP candidate against the classes, can only be an abortion unless it is solidi), would have put Stalinist-control1ed unions on a very uncom­ based on the organized labor movement. fortable spot: whom could they endorse? It must be remem­ bered in this connection that the Stalinists have not run a Even if the Kingdons an(l Crums had gone along with presidential candidate of their own in twelve years-really, in Wallace on this adventure, the realities of his situation would sixteen years, since in 1936 the CP "ran" Browder for the rec­ have been only slightly altered as long as the trade unions ord but put its bankroll on Roosevelt (as they are now doing turned thumbs down. The purely "liberal" vote and social with respect to Wallace and Taft). influence, as distinct from labor's vote and social weight, is (3) The CP is running Wallace as the biggest possible not quite a negligible quantity but it is a distinctly minor con­ sounding board for an all-out propaganda attack on the Mar­ sideration. shall Plan-the No. I task assigned by Moscow. The converse is, however, not true. Labor's independent (4) The CP is running Wallace as the best form of pres­ political strength is the unlit fuse of American society-its ex­ sure upon Truman, for what it is worth. They can at least plosion would shake the political framework to its founda­ hope that, if the Wallace campaign takes, Truman will find tions and send cracks ramifying into the social and economic it expedient to move over in his direction in order to keep substructures. In comparison the Wallace movement is a wet from losing too many Wallacian-liberal votes. They can also firecracker pinging inside an empty can. Workers Parly PabUcalioDs 4 Court Square. Long Island City 1. N. Y.

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THE NEW INTERNATIONAL· JANUARY, 1948 9 Toward a Re-United India Program for the Fight Against Partition

The division imposed upon the sub­ nent, a division long opposed by the Indian nationalist move­ continent of India, into the Dominion of Pakistan and the ment? Dominion of India, has occurred under the most disastrous We cannot here trace the entire history. Fundamentally, it and tragic circumstances imaginable. If recent experience in resulted from the historic incapacity of the Indian bourgeoisie, the colonial world has again indicated the incapacity of the na­ organized in its Congress Party, to lead the oppressed nation tional bourgeoisie to successfully lead the nation to national as a whole in the fight for national independence. Partition independence (Indo-China, Indonesia, etc.), the experience in was thus the end result of a long period of struggle and nego­ India has not only underscored this fact again, but also the tiation between three forces-British imperialism, the Con­ additional fact that this same bourgeoisie can only lead the gress Party and the reactionary Moslem League of the feudal­ nation from one disaster toward the menace of an even ists. Throughout the torturous negotiations of partition's final greater disaster. phase, lasting two years, imperialism remained the dominant Creations of only a few months, the Dominions of Pakistan element in the situation, despite the fact that its own internal and of India are already squared off against each other as weaknesses forced it to twist and yield and bend. though the perspective of an ultimate, full-scale war between them is to be understood, taken for granted and prepared for! Why Partition Took Place Such a war is not possible today, nor probably for many The final solution reached, while not the most satisfactory, years to come. Both territories are too chaotic, disorganized was nevertheless highly acceptable to imperialism since it sig­ and lacking in stability to engage in such madness at the mo­ nified the continuation, even though in a highly modified ment. Yet this is clearly the trend, as openly predicted by their form, of Britain's power over the bulk of India's economic life. respective leaders, including the eminent philosopher of non­ The direct rule of British imperialism is ending. The job of violence, Mahatma Gandhi! But neither one has the army, the governing the country. has been handed over to the Indian bour­ administrative or technical cadres, or the machine necessary geoisie, with whom the British imperialists have entered into a part­ for war. Yet it is clear that both governments, young and nership .... Despite a certain improvement in the relative position immature as they are, are pointed in that direction, will. begin of Indian capital, the volume of British capital investment in India (indeed already have begun) to prepare for this eventuality, has undergone no significant change, while the grip of imperialist capital over the exchange banks, insurance companies and in ship,. and-assuming they remain in power, consolidate and estab­ ping and key positions in industry continues.... The direct rule lish themselves-will one day plunge the whole land into its of British imperialism, we declare therefore, is being replaced by greatest catastrophe, war between Pakistan and India, over indirect rule. continental control. This declaration of the Indian Trotskyist party on the eve of If we speak of the necessity of an orientation toward re­ the August 15, 1947, day of "independence" is essentially unification of India, it is without any illusions. The terrible correct. damage already inflicted on the cause of a united India makes it impossible to accomplish such a task except over a long But more was involved than the creation of this junior period of time and with the utmost difficulty. The division of partnership of the Hindu capitalist class with imperialism. India today is a fact that must be taken as a new departure Unable to force an acceptance of its original "Cripps pro­ point. We must seek to understand why the division took posal," under whose terms a unified India would have emerged place as it did, the causes of the disastrous manner in which ~ith the junior partnership embracing the Moslem League as it was carried out, and then pose the question of whether it well as the Congress, imperialism sought a solution that would can be healed, and how. not only leave India in as weak a condition as possible, but with a chronic, long-lasting communal division that would sap • the potential unified strength of the country and assist the It is apparent that neither dominion is capable of healing British strategy of remaining on and intervening at important the rupture but, given their troubled and dynamic internal moments in the life of the two dominions. Thanks to the social systems, will clash again and again. If today's struggles Congress and to the Moslem League, equally, this strategy has over those princely states which have not yet made their choice succeeded. between the dominions Ganagadh, Kashmir and Hyderabad) Finally, it would be blindness itself not to recognize the will be settled in one or another way by force of circumstances, mass forces and pressures at work that made it possible for the we should only view such settlements as temporary in charac­ Moslem League to take the adamant stand that it did. The ter and in no way harmonizing the antagonism between the truth is that over a period of years the Moslem masses became two power groups. The same attitude must be maintained increasingly (and justifiably) concerned over their possiqle toward the important agreements and settlements of serious future under a Congress regime. Since no reassuring force rose financial matters reached in December 1947 by the two states. among the Hindu masses to calm their fears, the Moslem The rulers of Pakistan, in a far inferior economic and indus­ League leaders were not only able to create a mass movement trial position, will not rest with their defeat in the Kashmir out of the communal problem but were also able to present adventure; nor have the Hindu capitalist rulers of India be­ themselves as the sole active mass force present at the confer­ come reconciled to their losses in the Pakistan territories. ence table. The partition of India did not take place merely What W'ere the fact0r5 leading to the di'viMO'l'l of the CORti· as a cold, worked-dut deal betweeon the three force ~ have

10 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL - JANUAR.Y, 1948 mentioned. The atmosphere was ready for the violent and munity occupied roughly the center of the Punjab. Further­ tragic explosion that occurred. more, " ... the border regions of both Eastern and Western In a previous article in THE NEW INTERNATIONAL (Decem­ Punjab were occupied by the land-hungry peasantry. The per­ ber 1947), we have attempted to outline the character of the sistent propaganda of the Moslem League promised the land Hindu-Moslem conflict and relate it to the now increasingly to the Moslem peasantry who were told that once Pakistan familiar world tendency of the regrowth of narrow nationalist was established, all land would belong to the Moslems." and communalist movements within the confines of the more (M. Naidu, The Militant, October 27, 1947.) Likewise, in the backward territories. Moslem communalism, called into exist­ Moslem sections of the Punjab, the landlords and money lend­ ence first by British imperialism, became a force which could ers were mainly Hindus. Class and communal struggles over­ not be brushed aside and which channelized the strength and la pped and were confused. desires of tens of millions of India's most backward and down­ The document dividing the Punjab was a British-drawn trodden community. At the conference table of partition it document. It was deliberately conceived to antagonize the had to be accounted for. Moslems, who constituted 57 per cent of the Punjab, and the four and a half million Sikh community. On either side of the Chain Reaction Unleasheel announced border between India and Pakistan four million The actual partition took place suddenly, abruptly and minority peoples found themselves. On one side was a large brutally. Only the top leadership of Congress, imperialism and Moslem community, in conflict with their Hindu landlords, the Moslem League knew what was coming. In this sense, even industrialists and capitalists, bankers and business men, money though it may be argued that India's division was "agreed" to lenders and merchants. On the other side were masses of Hin­ and segments of the nation were consulted, we maintain that du peasants, living under Moslem landlordism. In-between it was a reactionary and imposed division, so far as the masses was the rich and powerful community of the bearded Sikhs. were concerned. And the British were permitted to handle this tense problem Nehru for the Congress, Jinnah for the Moslem League, and make the final decision! and Lord Mountbatten for imperialism were thus the authors Suddenly, without warning, the Punjab was split wide of the great disaster which followed, particularly in the prov­ open, with the demarcation line between India and Pakistan ince of Punjab. The frustrated impulses of the two peoples, running down through the rich communal lands of the Sikhs. held back by their leadership from a joint struggle against Reactionary, communalist elements on both sides had been imperialism, ran into communal lines and burst out in a agitating the land-hungry peasants that partition would be frenzy of communal warfare. Two nations, Hindu and Mos­ the signal for the expropriation of opposing communities and lem, were born amid the barbaric death of hundreds of thou­ seizure of their lands and property. Once such action had be­ sands, the forced migration of minions and the destruction of gun it swiftly became the bloody chain reaction familiar to us. enormous amounts of property. Poverty, land-hunger, feudalism, religious fanaticism, narrow By November 1947, it was estimated that eight million communalism, incapable of being held in check by a non­ persons had been switched or displaced in the Punjab and existent revolutionary leadership, ran rampant. The real crim­ elsewhere. Many others will migrate, at a slower pace, and the inals in the situation are the same three forces that had signed tendency will be for both dominions to become strictly one this partition conceived in secrecy-British imperialism, Hin­ community or the other. This was the greatest mass migration du capitalism and Moslem feudalism. That landlords, capital­ of world history, whipped up by a Eantastic outburst of com­ ists and feudalists were murdered in the struggle, and their munal hysteria. Over four million Hindus and Sikhs fled Pak­ properties destroyed, again illustrates the meaning of Marx's istan, and about the same number fled the Indian Dominion. remark about the continuation of our social order leading to No one has accurately estimated the number of deaths, but it the "common ruin" of all classes. was at least 250,000 people. The Sikh community of approxi­ mately five million, residing in the Punjab, had the highest Pakistan Versus India percentage of displacement and losses. One and a half million Thus the division of the sub-continent took place. There fled Pakistan, and 600,000 were left without any land or prop­ now exists Pakistan and India, two tremendous nations busily erty after. the debacle. attempting to consolidate their power and erect firm state If fratricidal communal strife appears outwardly as the foundations. How, from an economic standpoint, do they explosion of primitive emotions and fanatic passions, a closer compare with each other? We give a brief summary of both examination will indicate this to be untrue. A backward, semi­ nations' outstanding characteristics, without detail. feudal milieu, with a great mass of illiterate and down-trodden The Dominion of India is, by far, the more advanced eco­ peasants such as India provides, is not even necessary for such nomically and industrially. With a population over four outburstst as the example of Nazi Germany and the Jewish times that of Pakistan, India possesses most of the coal and co:rp.munity indicates. What is essential is the perversion of iron mines, textile and jute mills and steel mills, as well as the genuine and legitimate social grievances into paths desired by major harbors of the sub-continent (Bombay, Madras, Cal­ reac~ionary .segments of the population, on both sides. The cutta). India has the bulk of industrial production and skilled dearest example of this is the story of the Punjab, where the labor, particularly since most of the skilled Hindu workers major portion of the catastrophe took place.. who were living in Pakistan areas have now fled, along with The province of the Punjab was a distinct section of India, t.he flight of Hindu captial from that unhappy dominion. with a large population of Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs, all India's main difficulty, economically speaking, is a shortage in speaking a common language (PunJabi), and comparatively food production. well unified culturally find historicaIIy. 7he Sikhs, long em­ Pakistan is primarily an agricultural area-backward at ployed by the British as the nucleus of their armed forces in that-with very little actual industry. Larger than Greater India, had developed into a privileged military caste, often Germany, it has a population of seventy million; of whom and justly compared with the Cossacks of the Czar. This com- about sixty million are Moslems. It is the most backward re-

THE "NEW INTERNATIONAL - JANUARY, J948 11 gion, industrially, of the sub-continent. Pakistan has no known iron or coal, and Karachi is its only important harbor. The country's major asset is its large agricultural production, in­ cluding 85 per cent of all the world's jute supply (which must be processed in India!). There is an agricultural surplus of wheat and rice, cotton, wool and tea. There is little capital C"'IN~ for development, and the people are largely illiterate-four per cent can read as compared with twelve per cent in Indi~. Its skilled proletariat is small and rudimentary, with most of the population consisting of land-hungry peasants. The Indian Dominion thus is the center of capitalism, while Pakistan is the home of the strongest semi-feudalism and landlordism. This is the heart of the economic struggle between the dominions, with Hindu capital seeking to rule and exploit the sub-continent as a whole, and Moslem land­ lordism resisting and demanding its share in such an expan­ sionist program. Given its obvious weaknesses and disadvantages as against the Indian Dominion, the future of Pakistan as a long-lasting, viable state is doubtful indeed. The desire to find a more stable base is unquestionably one of the reasons why the Pak­ MacI .... ~ INDIA ...... ,AIUST. ,...... istan rulers have begun various expansionist adventures, such !WIllI.. -­..... II PAKISTAN as the invasion of Kashmir. Writing in New Spark (August 30, IIYHItAUD 14,M'. ]947), Indra Sen has described some of the internal political JUIIAeAlllt ...... IIIIND£P. problems of Pakistan, all calculated to further upset the strug­ gling young state. He points out that Pakistan itself is composed of various vik-Leninist Party of India), like its sister sections of the minorities, divided along national lines-the Pathans, the Pun­ Fourth International, has distinguished itself (and continues jabis, the Baluchis, the Sindhis and the Bengalis are all sepa­ to do so) only by the multitude of its errors in handling this rate peoples within the body of the Moslem state. There is a matter. In our opinion, it has been consistently and thor­ movement among the Pathans (in the northern frontier area) oughly wrong from the beginning, and is still wrong. Does the for separation from Pakistan; Baluchistan has affiliated with BLPI believe it can grow and gain commanding influence Pakistan only as an autonomous province with its own admin­ without solving this key problem? Apparently yes, because it istration; there is a trend among the Moslems in Bengal to has never dealt with it in such detail and with such serious­ join forces with the Hindus in their own region and thus ness as to oblige us to conclude it even recognizes its impor­ (since Bengal is the single most powerful unit of Pakistan) tance. A brief resolution two years ago (now antiquated) and threaten to dominate the whole dominion. The Pakistan several articles in its press are all we have discovered. Constituent Assembly, in which the Bengalis have a clear In its December 1946 issue, THE NEW INTERNATIONAL pub­ majority, is now the center of the struggle among these disin­ lished an article presenting its point of view on the Pakistan, tegrating and centrifugal forces within Pakistan itself. These or the Hindu-Moslem problem, as well as an invitation to the tendencies, however, do not signify an early falling apart of Indian Trotskyists to explain their position. This was never the Pakistan Dominion, which will, on the contrary, be held accepted, and the proposal that the BLPI champion the right together precisely as the reactionary pressure of the Indian of the Moslem community to self-determination, if it so Dominion grows and tugs at it. This is a familiar story in wished, was never discussed, rejected, accepted or amended by history. the BLPI. Our previous criticisms of the BLPI still stand, in full. The Key Problem Now we must add new ones, and renew our invitation to these Now, viewed in its broadest aspects, the partition of the comrades to explain their viewpoint, or at least tell us what Indian sub-continent-as well as the disintegrative character­ is wrong with ours. Faced with the accomplished partition, istics within each separate dominion briefly described above­ what does the BLPI now say? It condemns the partition (so is but another example of a world-wide phenomenon peculiar do we); it calls for unity of Hindu and Moslem masses (so do to capitalism in its stage of total degeneration and regression. we); it explains the deceptive nature of Moslem communalism, This outstanding characteristic of our age. denied and ignored etc. Its proposal for the healing of the communal division is by the official Fourth International movement, has presented summed up by its publication, New Spark, in the following theoretical and tactical problems which virtually only two slogan: "For a single revolutionary Constituent Assembly 101' political movements, the IKD [German Trotskyists] and the India and Pakistan," Just as this slogan sums up the BLP!'s Workers Party. have grappled with. each in its own way and political program of today, so does it sum up everything that with its own answer. The wartime national movement in is wrong with that program. We shall attempt to explain why. Europe, the question of the Stalinist-occupied countries of the The strength and mass base of the reactionary, communal­ East of Europe, Palestine-these are some of the more familiar ist Moslem League was long under-estimated by the BLPI. new headaches plaguing revolutionary socialists. India and The BLPI was not alone in this error; many others who at­ Pakistan, mutatis mutandis, fit into the same category of re­ tempted to analyze the complex politics of India were also vived, unexpected but nevertheless solvable national problems. wrong, among them this writer. As a result, the BLPI only Unfortunately, the Indian .Trotskyist movement (Bolshe- recognizc0 the strength of this movement at a late stage and

12 THE NfW 'NTERNA·TlONAL • JANUARY, 1948 never developed a program which, in a positive fashion, could Here again the BLPI plays fast and loose with words. meet it. "Revolutionary" in what sense? Shall its task be to institute The very logic of the class struggle within India, it was workers' power and begin the construction of socialism in felt, would dissolve communalism through the revolutionary India? Then you are confusing your "revolutionary Constitu­ effects of national liberation, the emergence of the Indian pro. ent Assembly" with a Congress of Soviets and the proletarian letariat as the leader of the nation, etc. But precisely because dictatorship, which is really what you mean. The Constituent this "logical" development did not and has not occurred, the Assembly, as the highest political expression of the national­ acuteness of the Moslem problem grew. From a purely British­ democratic revolution, cannot be "revolutionary" in this created movement of reactionary feudalists and petty bour­ sense. Lenin and Trotsky, in their old writings against the left­ geois the League became a mass movement, with a certain in­ Mensheviks and the Russian S-Rs, often denounced this mix­ dependent existence of its own. Doctrinal disputes over ing up and confusing of issues. whether or not the Moslems constituted a· "legitimate" nation became increasingly abstract-i.e., meaningless. The point was, A Program for Re·Unification rather, that politically speaking they acted and believed more But, besides this matter of theoretical confusion, we wish and more as though they were determined to become a nationl to stress our principal objection to the slogan-namely, its The slogan of "Hindu-Moslem working class unity," while stubborn blindness before the reality that the two peoples are it remained applicable to concrete phases and actions of the drawing apart, not closer together as the very issuing of the class struggle, no longer sufficed as a central slogan to meet a slogan would falsely imply. The problem is: how to halt this developing political crisis. The propos~l that revolutionary disintegration; how to reverse the process and set the two peo­ socialists champion and support the right of the Moslem peo. ples on the road leading toward one another. No well-meant pIe to self-determination, to a separate existence, if they so abstraction will do it. wished (a wish which became increasingly obvious) was re­ In bringing our general attitude toward this problem up jected by the BLPI, which clung to its old position. Failing to to date, we offer the following set of propositions, partly a understand that the struggle of nationalities and national repetition of what has been previously said: minorities for self-realization within Idia itself is an organic (1) The BLPI shall support and champion the right of part of the general, all-nation struggle for national independ­ self-determination of all national and communal minorities ence from imperialism (to which it can, if properly directed, and peoples within the Indian sub-continent. First and fore­ add its strength as small rivulets feed a river), the BLPI ad­ most, the BLPI shall declare the right of the Moslem people vanced the utterly mechanical notion that only after the com­ to its own state, to complete separation, if they so wish. plete independence of India can the national problem within (2) The BLPI shall fully support the right of existence, the country itself be resolved. That is, the BLPI proposed to continuation and survival of Pakistan as a separate state. It put off indefinitely the working-out of a solution to what was shall categorically oppose any step or action on the part of the rapidly becoming the key political issue! It still proposes this. government of India and of the Hindu bourgeoisie to crush In practice, the BLPI made a farce out of the concept of the Pakistan and bring about "unity" by force and violence or permanent revolution, under which the working class wins economic pressure. It goes without saying, this implies no po­ and earns the leadership of the nation because it and it alone litical support to the Pakistan regime or to its reactionary is able to solve the multitude of unsolved problems, chief feudal-landlord rulers. It does mean that the BLPI supports among which are national and minority problems. In prac­ the right of the people within Pakistan to determine' their tice, the BLPI proposes the "pure" proletarian revolution own future. which, after its victory, will settle all questions. (3) The BLPI will oppose all efforts on the part of the The BLPI's present slogan of a "single revolutionary Con­ Indian Dominion to squeeze Pakistan economically, by insti­ stituent Assembly for India and Pakistan" is merely a new tution of taxes and duties on Pakistan raw materials; by con­ version of its former abstractionist slogan of Hindu-Moslem fiscating Moslem properties in India; by withholding funds unity and,.like the latter, evades the issue. To advance it to­ from Pakistan, etc. The first steps on the long and hard road day, as the chief slogan, must signify indeed that the BLPI toward a democratic re-unification of the sub-continent can does not even accept the partition as an accomplished factI only begin in simple, but important, economic and social mat­ To think that a single Constituent Assembly (that is, broad ters. The BLPI proposes customs unity, free travel between Moslem-Hindu unity) is realizable in the near future is to dis­ both countries, international trade unions of all workers in playa fantastic blindness in the face of what is happening. the dominions and such other concrete measures as will under­ Or, if the BLPI agrees that such a united assembly is remote, score unification. The BLPI supporters in Pakistan should then what business does it have making this its central slogan, rather than (at best) a propagandistic or educational one? naturally have a corresponding policy. This slogan is meaningless not merely because it is unrealiz­ (4) The BLPI must recognize that, in an educational sense, able, but because it makes no contact with a single living the only acceptable solution it can put forward for the even­ political development of today. tual organization of a re-unified India is that of a federated A revolutionary party such as the BLPI, with few or no India, constructed along not only multi-national but also units in Pakistan or among the Mosl,em masses, must do better multi-communal lines. This can mean not only a federated than this. Have not the comrades of the BLPI considered the state of the Punjab, for example, but also a federated Moslem fact that the Hindu bourgeoisie' would also favor a "united state of the Punjab, and a federated Hindu state of the Pun­ Constituent Assembly" for all of India? How shall you dis­ jab. We do not advocate or wish this, but we certainly cannot tinguish yourself from the Hindu chauvinists and nationalists exclude such a possible development. of the ruling class who wish tp "unify" the Moslem masses This, then, is our view of the road toward re-unification, in under their rule? By calling your Constituent Assembly its broad outlines. "revolutionary"? HzNaY JUDD.

THE NEW 'NTEIIIATlONA&' • JANUAlr, 1t41 II Peron: Argentine Sub-Imperialist Structural Changes In L.atin America

Latin America is undergoing a tions with Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia, expresses profound economic and social transformation. the dynamic industrial expansion of the Argentine bourgeoi­ A vigorous industrial development in Argentina and sie artd its drive to conquer new markets for its growing indus­ Brazil was made possible by the First World War. But it was tries. But perhaps Peron's political and social influence can the Second World War which gave the impetus to a true indus­ best be measured by the ideological pressure it exerts even trial revolution in these two countries. Between 1935 and within the Trotskyist organizations. 1945 certain branches of Argentine industry expanded be­ In the January-February, 1947, issue of Octubre, which tween 50 and 100 per cent. The size of the industrial prole­ carries on its cover Trotsky'S classic phrase concerning de­ tariat increased from 470,000 in 1935 to 1,0(')0,000 in 1945. fense of the USSR, we find various articles on the structural (Fourth International~ "Newsletter from Argentina," Decem­ changes which are occurring in Argentina. Victory Guerrero, ber, 1945.) So great is the concentration of the proletariat in in an editorial article, "Continental Policy of the Argentine the Buenos Aires area that 900,000 workers are to be found Bourgeoisie," sustains the main thesis that Peron is' realiz.ing within a radius of 100 kilometers. a bourgeois democratic revolution in A rgentina, and that the The two world wars permitted the semi-colonial countries customs union with Chile constitutes a step toward the unity to move toward independence, developing a comparatively of Latin America. strong industry of their own. Argentina freed itself from de­ The plan is inseparable from the Union. Both constitute an pendence on British imperialism, creating its own reserves of obvious attempt to overcome the feudal isolation of Chile and Ar­ capital. While the tempestuous development of Brazilian in­ gentina, authentic pre-capitalist remnant imposed by imperialism. dustry was based on North American credit, Argentina took Nevertheless, the plan is at the same time a reflection of the weak­ ness of the Argentine bourgeoisie. The country cannot· achieve its advantage of European investments, the flight of capital from self-determination except by renouncing its separate existence and Europe, primarily German investments, to emancipate itself integratIng itself in a Latin-American state in aceordance with the from both English and American capital. Until the First example of the United States in the eighteenth century. World '-\Tar, Argentina was a semi-feudal country, an exporter In order to give thi~ magisterial thesis a foundation, the of agricultural products to England. The governments and author defines Argentina's character as being that of a semi­ "Gaucho" policy took shape in the heat of the struggle be­ colonial and feudal country. And he .is not alone. In another tween the commercial bourgeoisie and the conservative lati­ article headed "Lenin and the National Question," Niceto fundists (big landowners) who were supported by British Andres follows him along the same path. Without in the least im perialism. noticing it, both authors fall into contradictions in analyzing In 1930, General Uriburu overthrew Irigoyen's Radical the national economy. "The agrarian problem in Argentina Party, representative of the commercial and industrial bour­ -naturally we exclude the other countries of Latin America geoisie, and installed a conservative government of latifun­ from this characterization-has been substantially resolved dists headed by Augustin P. Justo. In 1938 the Ortiz-Castillo from the capitalist point of view." (My emphasis-L. V.) combination deposed Justo, promising "clean" elections "Along with the development of the national industry, the against the agrarian oligarchy. But the development of Ar­ first imperialist war exercised other effects of the same type gentina's industry was already beyond the capacity of the old in the countryside. With the ending of the war, agricultural Radical Party, which represented the commercial bourgeoisie products brought high prices on the world market because and the heretofore embryonic industrial bourgeoisie. When European production was disorganized. This wave of pros­ Ortiz (who was close to the Radicals) died, his successor, Cas­ perity allowed new peasant strata to acquire property rights tillo, tended toward German influences. But this was hardly to the land they cultivated; similarly, it made it easier for sufficient. In June, 1943, the revolt of the Rawson-Ramirez other tenant farmers to establish capitalist forms of relations: clique installed a military regime opposed to the United the substitution of rent in money for rent in kind, etc. Accord­ States and supported by Hitler. ig to an estimate by Horne, 70 per cent of the peasantry is Peron's Plan capitalist in type, well-to-do tenants and independent farmers. As in the case of the industrial evolution. the Argentine coun­ The "grey eminence" of this revolt was Juan Domingo tryside took advantage of the imperialist crisis and accentu­ Peron, who rose to power by way of elections after the years ated its march toward superior levels. At the same time, the of military dictatorship, defeating the "Democratic Union" so-called 'oligarchy' (latifundists) had already lost in large composed of Radicals, Stalinists and Socialists. Peron's regime part its old patriarchal form." (V. Guerrero. "Continental now has a social base that extends not only into the bour­ Policy," Octubre, No.3, 47.) geoisie and the middle class, but into the backward layers of the Argentine proletariat as well. Peron was able to defeat Did Peron Make a Revolution? both the Stalinists and the Socialists in the trade unions, cre­ This is the manner in which Guerrero characterizes the ating his own unions of a totalitarian type. His social policy economic structure of a "semi-colonial country." But Niceto of increasing wages won him enormous sympathies. goes even further. .N ot so long ago Peron announced a five-year plan and Let us now look at Argentina. Its (l,gricUlture posse88e8 (I, capi­ also signed a commercial treaty with Chile which looks toward tali8t oharaoter. Its industry gives emploJlment to a numerous and a customs union. ATgentina's five-year plan, as well as its rela- oonoentrated proletariat. It is (I, creditor nation. Nevertheless, the

14 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL • JANUAa,. It. bourgeois-demoeratic tasks are still to be completed.•.. Argentina's own government, all demonstrate that the Latin American semi-colonial character is determined in the last instance by the bourgeoisie is incapable of conducting a vigorous and openly semi-colonial character of Latin America taken in its totality..•• Argentina cannot conquer an independent position for the simple declared [?] struggle against imperialism." (Guerrero, Ibid. reason that the independence of Latin America and each one of My emphasis and question mark-V.) the "countries" that make it up can only be won through the uni­ It should be evident now that the Argentine Trotskyists fication of a great national state. The unity of Latin America, for wish to be more Catholic than the Pope and more Peronista us that signifies the bourgeois - demoC'mtic 'revolution. (Niceto: than Peron, leading forward the bourgeois-democratic revo­ "Lenin and the National Question," Octubre, No.3, 47.) lution in Argentina, Brazil and the other Latin American Our author continues his dispute with the Argentine countries with the blessing of Pope Stalin and that "demo­ group associated with EI Militantel which supports the oppo­ cratic revolutionary," Peron. For them the socialist revolu­ site thesis that Argentina is no longer a semi-colonial country tion belongs to a distant epoch: "The five-year plan and the but capitalist par excellencel and that consequently the bour­ customs union with Chile wili sweep the feudal trash from geois-democratic revolution has been accomplished in this the path of the working class and force imperialism to retreat country. He affirms that iuch a revolution has never been rea­ from its posts of control over the continental and Argentine lized in Argentina. It was carried out neither by Irigoyen nor economy (really?) thus restricting its markets, aggravating its anyone else, but by Peron. "Until 1916, Argentina was 'almost' crisis and providing a much wider historic arena for the great colonial. Irigoyen's rise to power did not essentially modify future struggle between the Latin American bourgeoisie and this situation. Uriburu and Justo represented the oligarchical­ the proletariat of the continent." (Guerrero, Ibid.) imperialist reaction, Ortiz and Castillo the extension of this In other words we are far, very far, from a socialist revolu­ policy with semi-Bonapartist characteristics, under conditions tion. First Peron, with Stalin's blessings and the brave help of war.... When therefore was the bourgeois revolution car­ of the Octubre Trotskyists, is to realize "the unity of Latin ried out? Grit your teeth and contemplate the Medusa's head. America" and "force imperialism to retreat" in order "to pro­ That revolution took place ... on the 4th of ]unel 1943." (Ni­ vide a much wider historic arena for the Latin American pro­ ceto. My emphasis-L. V.) letariat." And this is called Marxisml Comrade "Gauchos," Thus we arrive at the fundamental thesis that Peron rea­ this is not Marxism but a native "hash a la Peron." lized the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and accordingly the II author asks his adversaries: Why do you call it a "dictator­ ship" of the "totalitarian" stripe? In order to investigate and clarify our problem, and to separate the correct ideas from the "hash," we must refer to Since the democratic revolution in its agrarian as well as the writings of Jose Carlos Mariategui, Peruvian Marxist, es­ in its industrial aspect has already been exhausted in Argen­ teemed not only in his own country and on the Latin Amer­ tina, according to the authors themselves, it follows that the ican continent but among all Spanish speaking peoples. We principal task of the "Peron Revolution" is to realize the unity have at hand only his "Seven Essays on the Interpretation of of Latin A merica because "the semi-colonial character of l the Peruvian Reality," which does not contain much on our Argentina is determined in the last analysis by the semi-colo­ question. Nevertheless, what there is will aid us in clarifying nial character of Latin America taken in its totality." the problem in question. Our authors turn back to the period of pre-independence Mariategui teaches us that the Spanish conquistadores when the adventurer-generals of Latin America dreamed of found in existence an Incan economic system which was ... continental unity. They cite the Venezuelan general Miranda, San Martin, and Simon Bolivar, the "Liberator," who wished well disciplined, pantheistic and simple-enjoying material well­ being. Subsistence abounded and the population increased. The to unite Latin America into a federation of states in imita­ Empire was radically unaware of the Malthusian problem.•.. The tion of Washington and who called the congress of Panama collective work and the common effort were directed fruitfully to­ for this purpose. However, the embryonic bourgeoisie of the ward social ends. (Mariategui, Seven Essays, page 7.) period was too weak to realize this task, while Anglo-Amer­ Without being able to replace it, the Spanish conquist.adores destroyed this formidable machine of production. The Inca econ­ ican imperialism did everything possible to prevent it and to omy, the native society, decomposed and was completely crushed stimulate the formation of "independent" states, thus effect­ by the conquest. The links of unity broken, the nation dissolved ing the "Balkanization" of the South American continent. into dispersed communities•••• With the development of Argentine industry the Argentine The domain ruled by the Viceroy outlined the beginning of the difficult and complex process involved in the formation of a new frontiers have become much too narrow, and the inexorable economy.•.• On the ruins of the collectivist Inca system, the con­ need for a market has given birth to the "continental con­ quistadores imposed the feudal European system, dividing the science" of the Argentine bourgeoisie. And Latin America is common lands among themselves and plundering the Inca palaces a: market of 130,000,000 people. Argentina's five-year plan and and silver mines.•.• The Spaniards began to cultivate the soil and the customs union with Chile are the coefficients of the same exploit the gold and silver mines•.•. [Bu~] the weakness of the Spanish Empire resided precisely in its character and structure, policy. (Guerrero, "Continental Policy.") this being more of a military and ecclesiastieal enterprise than p0- litical and economic. Large groups of pioneers did not land in the "Socialism in Due Time" Spanish colonies as they did on the shores of New England. To The limits of this "emancipating" process, continues our Latin America there came almost no one but viceroys, courtesans, author, depend on the international situation, the attitude adventurers, clerics, doctors and soldiers. A true force for coloniza­ tion did not, therefore, take shape in Peru. The popUlation of Lima of the American working class and of its vanguard. Solemnly included a small court, a bureaucracy, some convents, inquisitors, assuming the toga of a Marxist Cato, our author thunders: merchants, servants and slaves; besides, the Spanish pioneer uIt is the duty of the v~rzguard in the United States to give lacked the aptitude necessary to create nuclei of labor•••• The political support to every step taken by the nationalist-bour­ colonizers preoccupied themselves almost exclusively with the ex­ ploitation of Peruvian gold and silver. geois government of A rgentina against imperialism ... the Thus it was that the conquest imported a feudal Spanish sys­ Betancourt government (Venezuela), the APRA (Peru), Bo­ tem in process of decay, imposing it on the ruins of Inca collec­ livian nationalism, the Dutra government (Brazil) and Peron's tivism. The repUblican economy, like that of the conquest, was also

THE NEW INTEINATIOHAL - .lANUAIJ. 1941 15 born of a political and military deed .... With independence, the the colonies, as well as to the development both of the colonies ideas of the French Revolution and the North American constitu­ and European capitalism; an economic and politic~l tevol.u. tion begin to find a climate favorable to their diffusion in South tion; even though limited, a st.ep forward from SpanIsh medIe­ America because a boU'rgeoisie existed, though em.bryonic in char­ acter. Given its economic needs and interests, this bowrgeoisie was val feudalism to free-trade capitalism. In this general sense fated to catch the revolutionary fever from the European bour­ the wars of independence had already begun the bourgeois­ geoisie. Certainly, Hispano-American independence would never democratic revolution in all of Latin A merica. However, the have been realized had there not existed a heroic generation re­ rhythm of this transformation from a feudal to a capitalist so­ sponsive to the emotions of its epoch, with a capacity and will to inspire in these peoples a true revolution .... The leaders and cau­ ciety was different in various countri~, in the fi~t pla~e the dillos, the ideologues of this revolution, were neither inferior nor regions of the Atlantic and the PacIfic. The .clrculatzon of superior to the premises, basically economic, of this event.... commodities and emigration were much more zntense on the Spanish policy was in total contradiction to, and acted as an Atlantic coast, in Argentina and Brazil. For this reason, these obstacle to, the economic development of the colonies. She [Spain] countries acquired primary importance in the capitalist epoch, did not allow them to engage in traffic with any other nation, re­ serving for herself the role of the metropolis and monopolizing in displacing Peru and Bolivia, previously the centers of the exclusive fashion the right to all commerce and enterprise in these Spanish domain and the Empzre. . territories.... The comrades of Octubre must be blind not to have seen The natural impulse of the productive strength of the colonies this fundamental change. Due to capitalist influence, the was to fight to break this bond. The nascent economy of the em­ bryonic American national formations imperiously demanded sepa­ economies of A rgentina and Brazil were tra.nsf~r~edJ a,,!d ration from the rigid authority, and emancipation from the me­ they acquired first importance as the most cap~talzstzc and '~­ dieval mentality of the King of Spain, if it was to achieve its de­ dustrial countries in Latin America. "ArgentIna and BrazIl velopment .... Taken on the plane of world history, South Amer­ attracted European capital and emigrants to their terri.tories ican independence reveals itself as being determined by the neces­ sities of the development of western, or more precisely, of capital­ in large quantities. The strong and homogeneous sedIment ist civilization. [My emphasis-V _] ... Although the rhythm of cap­ deposited by this tide from the west accelerated the ~ransfor­ italist phenomena had a less apparent and ostensible function in mation of the economy and culture of these countnes, and the elaboration of independence than the echo of the philosophy gradually they acquired the function and structure of Euro­ and literature of the encyclopedists, it was without a doubt much more decisive and profound. (Mariategui, ibid.) pean culture and economy. Li~eral and bou~geois democracy could sink sure roots here, whzle the extensIve and stubborn For Mariategui, then, South American independence has persistence of feudal residues impeded its progress in the rest its basis in capitalist development. For the Octubre· Trotsky­ of South America.'# (Mariategui, ibid., page 12, my empha- ists, the formation of national states in Latin America be­ sis-V.) longs to the pre-capitalist epoch. Here is the first fundamental disagreement. Nature of Peronls Dictatorship Change in Argentina and Brazil The most prominent South American Marxist teacher es­ tablishes "the structure of European economy" in Argentina Since Spain could not satisfy .the needs flowing from the and Brazil, that is, the existence of a "capitalist and liberal economic and social development of the colonies, the latter bourgeois economy" in these countries ~ong before the Ar~en­ sought relations with the capitalist countries, above all with tine Octubrists. Political and economIc developments sInce England. "Then in process of formation, the British empire Mariategui wrote have confirmed his analysis. During the was destined to represent genuinely and overwhelmingly the First World War Argentina and Brazil, and in part Chile as interests of capitalist civilization. In England, seat of liberal­ well, developed their industries to such a point that they w~re ism and Protestantism, the machine and industry prepared able to a large extent to free themselves from European 1I~­ the future of capitalism. It was for this reason that England perialism. From our point of view, therefore, .the democratic was called upon to playa primary role in the independence revolution in these countries corresponds to thzs and the post- of South America." (Ibid.) war period. . . The South American colonies were saturated with monks, Varga!s dictatorship in Brazil corresponds to a .C~lS1S of doctors, viceroys, inquisitors, soldiers, governors and adven­ Brazilian capitalism, a repercussion of the world crISIS. The turers; needing modem colonizers, needing industrial prod­ semi-Bonapartist Ortiz-Castillo regime also reflects the same ucts, "they turned toward England whose bankers and indus­ phenomenon in Argentina. Peron's dictatorship is a continu­ trializers, colonizers of a new type, wanted to win new mar· ation and deepening of this process, accelerated a?d sh~p~d kets, thus fulfilling the role of builders of an empire just ris­ by the crisis of world capitalism and the second ImpenalIst ing as the creation of a manufacturing and free-trade econ­ world war. These Bonapartist-totalitarian regimes appear in omy." (Ibid.) the classic situation where the bourgeoisie is no longer capable The economic interests of the Spanish colonies and the inter­ of governing the country with classic liberal methods and the ests of the western capitalists were in complete harmony.... proletariat is still not mature enough to take the power. The Hardly had these nations won their independence than they sought totalitarian dictatorships of Argentina and Brazil do not con­ those elements and relations that the growth of their economy re­ quired in traffic with the capital and industry of the West; To the stitute a termination of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, capitalist West they began to send the products of their soil and but the reflection of the premature crisis of liberal capitalism subsoil; and from the capitalist West they began to receive tex­ in these countries. tiles, machinery and a thousand and one industrial products. A The industrial development of these countries is not the continuous and growing contact was established between South America and western civilization at his time. Naturally, the coun­ work of the dictatorships and is not at all based on them. Its tries most favored by this traffic were those situated on the A tlan­ fundamental cause and tempestuous development are rooted tic. (Ibid.) in the mortal crisis of imperialism impelled to its 'own de­ Mariategui, as we see, considers the liberation of Latin struction in the Second World War, giving economic freedom America from the Spanish yoke a profound revolutionary to these countries, and allowing them to develop their own transformation which conforms to the economic necessities of industries so that they might satisfy the needs of the continent.

16 THI NIW INTIINATIONAL • JANUA.r. I'''' Under the conditions determined by imperialism, this in­ Peron's expansionism is not a struggle of the Argentinians dustrial development gives the appearance of youth and against imperialism, but an expansion of the Argentine bour­ dynamism to these regimes of crisis. It compels these regimes geoisie whirh strives to dominate the continent and establish to abandon the classic methods of liberalism and pass to a a 10GI1 "sub-illlperialism." The Argentine-Chile treaty gives "controlled economy" containing strong elements of state enormous advantages to Argentina, reducing Chile to a de­ capitalism. Consequently, the momentary concessions granted pendency. Peron pays $13 Argentine for 100 kilograms of to the workers are not inspired by Peron's democratic revolu­ wheat, selling it to Chile for $35 Argentine and bringing tion, but by tpe Bonapartist policies of his regime. about a Chilean selling price of 400 to 500 Chilean pesos. The Chilean producer receives from the state only 195 to 205 III Chilean pesos for the same product. This same relationship And now for some final conclusions: obtains for all products. (I) If the democratic revolution in Argentina and Brazil The conditions of world imperialism being what they are, was concluded and done with in the first post-war period, then there will not be very much room for Argentina's "sub-impe­ only the Latin American proletariat is a revolutionary force, rialism." In the long run Argentina will have to submit to and only the socialist and proletarian revolution is on the Yankee imperialism. The struggle between Peron and Braden order of the day. The Bonapartist, dictatorial, or Nazi-like was not for domination of the continent, but for the crumbs regimes in Argentina and Brazil, the APRA regime in Peru, which the Argentine bourgeoisie requires as a sub-agency of the defeated Villaroel regime in Bolivia, the Betancourt re­ American imperialism. However, Argentina is no longer a gime in Venezuela, and that of Morinigo in Paraguay, are not semi-colonial country despite this relationship. Czarist Russia "backward" regimes of the last wave of the democratic revolu­ borrowed money from France and was not a semi-colonial tion in South America. They are in reality reactionary regimes, country. the tardy product of the wave of German Nazism and Euro­ The economic dependence of Argentina is of a modern pean fascism in general. They are regimes of capitalist crisis imperialist, not of a semi-colonial type. Great Britain, with­ in the specific conditions of South America. out being a semi-colony, being an empire in decay, depend4i In accordance with Mariategui, we must establish the dif­ more on the United States than does Argentina. For this rea­ ference between the two large capitalist countries of the son the struggle between Argentina and the North American Atlantic coast, Argentina and Brazil, and the rest of the con­ bourgeoisie does not have a revolutionary character for the tinent, principally Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay and proletariat, but a local, limited and inter-imperialist charac­ Venezuela. In these latter countries there are strong residues ter within the South American framework. of feudalism. Nevertheless, Mariategui poses and defines the socialist revolution as the immediate perspective for Peru, ACJalnst ALL I,mperiallsm arguing that only this revolution is capable of realizing such (3) The program of the United States of Latin America bourgeois tasks as the agrarian question and national libera­ cannot be considered as bourgeois-democratic under present tion from the imperialist yoke, given the weakness of the na­ conditions, though theoretically the native bourgeoisie could tive bourgeoisie and the strength of the imperialists, given the have realized it. Nevertheless it failed to do so. The situation close tie between the native bourgeoisie and imperialism. of Latin America at the dawn of capitalism cannot be com­ Starting from this premise, the "anti-imperialist" struggle pared to the situation of medieval Europe, which constituted of the native petty-bourgeoisie, the Peruvian APRA, the N a­ a "Christian republic" united under the Pope and the Roman tionalist Revolutionary Movement in Bolivia, Betancourt in Empire of the German people, with an official language, Venezuela, Stalinism in Chile and Brazil, is demagogy reduced Latin. The development of capitalism divided Europe into to impotent phrase-mongering, and collaboration with im­ national states. The same development took place in Latin perialism on coming to power. To support this struggle is to America but with this different:e: After the crushing of the distract the proletariat from its historic mission of realizing indigenous races, national cultures and different languages the unfinished democratic tasks through the Socialist revolu­ did not appear, the Spanish language remaining dominant. tion. This facilitates the realization of the Socialist United States of Latin America. However, the content of this program is ArCJentlna's "Sub.lmperialism" socialist and not bourgeois. Its realization will be accom­ Only the proletariat can consistent! y combat imperialism plished undel' the conditions of irnperialism~ not of that pre­ in South America. Whether it be considered from the eco­ capitalism which the democratic revolution was destined to nomic or from the social and political aspect, the socialist clear away. revolution is on the order of the day in all of South America, The Argentine Octubrists confuse the phenomenon and with this difference: In Argentina and Brazil the Socialist relationships of modern imperialism with feudalism; the so­ tasks will be realized immediately, while in Peru, Bolivia, cialist with the bourgeois revolution; totalitarian Bonapart­ Colombia, etc., the democratic tasks will be completed in ism with bourgeois democracy; and industrial development passing in order to step immediately into the proletarian phase. caused by the imperialist world crisis with the democratic in­ (2) The Argentine economy is capitalist par excellence.1 dustrial revolution. They make of Marxism a scientific and international doctrine which seeks and finds the same phe­ 1. Ths fact is established by the "Octubrists" themselves, who find nomena in every part of the world, a native "hash." They Argentine industry and agriculture obviously capitalist. Where then is the content of the bourg'eois democratic revolutio~ and Argentina's proclaim the Peron reaction a bourgeois-democratic revolu­ semi-colonial character? To rid themselves of this hea.dache and save themselves from an obvious contradiction, the "Octubrists" declare: tion, and his inter-imperialist struggle for crumbs an anti­ "The semi-colonial character of Argentina is defined in the last analy­ imperialist struggle which merits the support of the prole­ sis by the semi-COlonial character of Latin America." This is an error, however, because from any point of view the continent does not con­ tariat. stitute an economic entity on the same plane ot development. At the Proclaiming the democratic revolution, which has already side ot capitalist countries such as Argentina and Brazil. we have semi-colonial countries like Peru, BOlivia, etc. been completed, to be the task 'of the proletariat, they post-

THI NIW 'NTIIIIATlOIIAL • JAIIUAlr. I'''' 17 pone the realization of socialism to another historical epoch, tionary and fascist Argent.me bourgeoisie which "struggles" thus placing themselves within the Stalinist orbit which de-. agaInst North American expansion, the proletC\riat should sires to profit from Peron's struggle against the United States. form its own front opposed to both Peronism and Yankee im­ Thus do they lose sight of the revolutionary perspective and perialism. In view of the world division between the two im­ reduce the proletariat to the subordinate role of supporting perialist blocs~ the proletariat cannot reduce itself to being Peron's "sub-imperialism" and Stalinist imperialism, aban­ lackeys and cannon fodder for one or the other bloc~ but doning the classic doctrines of South American Marxism in should carry forward its own policy of the world-wide pro­ favor of imported Stalinism. In the end they may discover letarian and socialist third front opposed to capitalist and themselves in the embrace of Peronism, betraying the prole­ Stalinist imperialism. tariat. Only by tirelessly combatting not only imperialism but Latin America is passing through a period of profound also Peronism, Aprism, Villaroelism, Stalinism and such reac­ economic and social change caused by the crisis of capitalist tionary caudillos as Betancourt and Morinigo under the ban­ imperialism. Naturally we have no desire to underestimate ner of the socialist revolution, can the struggle be carried to the importance of imperialist oppression in Latin America. a finish and the democratic tasks accomplished in the back­ However, the South American phenomena have a general ward countries of South America. The unity of Latin Amer­ character modified by local conditions. ica will be realized not by Peron in his struggle against Yan­ Imperialism can be fought only under the proletarian kee imperialism, but in the struggle of the proletariat against banner of the socialist revolution. The proletariat should not imperialism and its native bourgeois allies, as the immediate lend its support to the reactionary, nationalist and utopian historic perspective. petty bourgeoisie, but should engage this bourgeoisie in po­ LUIS VELASCO. lilicai combat with its own program. In the case of the reac- (Translated by A be Stein) What's Ahead for Palestine? Arab-Jewish War or Voluntary Union

The tragedy of Palestine lies not a dangerous transition period under the British to be fol­ only in the fratricidal warfare that has sprung up, with its lowed by an interim period under the UN. death toll of over 475 people in the first month following the In this way the imperialists first layout a wall (state boun­ UN vote in favor of partition. It lies also in the fact that the daries) between the two peoples and then, after thus intensify­ two working classes involved, Jewish and Arab, failed to break ing the existing national antagonisms, refuse to release their through the national antagonisms and achieve a solution of hold on both. As long as the wall is not actually cemented in their own. place, as long as the transition period of continued imperialist This outcome has not done away with the elements out control lasts, the Arab leaders can hope to upset the entire of which could have been fashioned a solution which guar­ plan for their own reactionary ends and by their own reac­ anteed a united free Palestine and the national rights of both tionary means-by utilizing force, bloodshed and diplomatic peoples. These elements were and are: the antagonistic inter~ blackmail. ests of Jewish workers and Jewish bourgeoisie, the antagonistic Cease Fire! interests of Arab peasants and Arab feudal landlords; and the existence of a real common ground for a joint class struggle At th~ same time that we oppose the fratricidal warfare of the Jewish and Arab toilers against the exploiting classes already created by partition, we must demand that both the of both sectors of Palestine. British and the UN pull out of Palestine immediately. Their Before partition, this meant that only such unity of the continued meddling in the seething pot will not moderate the nationalities from below could have achieved independence situation they have created, nor will it be intended to do so. without the imperialist splitting up of Palestine. After parti­ Neither will the forcible suppression of the Arabs by "out­ tion, it means that only the same national-class unity can side" UN troops, as demanded by many Jewil)h leadels, serve achieve a re-unification of the suffering country without out­ to convince any Arab peasants (not to speak of their leaders) side imperialist domination. Partition, even insofar as it is to that the Jews are in Palestine to do them any- good. be regarded as an accomplished fact, does not change the lines In addition to this, it is necessary for the Jewish and Arab of the only lasting solution. workers to raise the demand of "Cease fire!" and to mobilize all sections of both Jews and Arabs, the majority of whom­ Unfortunately, the semi-feudal Arab leaders and the bour­ while they do not as yet see eye to eye on the political future geois Jewish leaders helped the British to divide the two peo­ of the country-are passionately against a war between the ples and prevented a joint anti-imperialist struggle. As usual in such cases, since no solution came from the workers or the Jews and Arabs. Every attempt must be made to isolate the groups, such as the Mufti's organized "People's Army," led oppressed peoples concerned, the imperialists imposed their by Kawukze among the Arabs, and the Irgun and Stem groups own solution-a solution that is guaranteed to keep the coun­ among the Jews, which fan the Hames of fratricidal war. try in turmoil and bloodshed for at least a year and in eco­ nomic bondage for at least ten years. I The present set-up is indeed a great incentive to violence. The est:ablishment of a Jewish state in Palestine does not The UN creates such an incentive by the fact that its plan is eliminate the necessity for Arab-Jewish rapprochement and onl y a recommendation, and by the fact that it provides for unity. The small country of Palestine is divided into eight

18 THE HEW IHTEIHATIOHAL - JANUAI'. 1t41 parts. In addition there is the free city of Jerusalem, with an little from the Mufti, because they have been supporting him almost equal population of Jews and Arabs, and the industrial and his Arab Higher Committee, whlle seeking representation city of Jaffa, which is to be an Arab enclave within the Jewish on the Arab Higher Committee and total control over labor state. If for no other reason, the braided borders of the par­ unions. tition make the independence of the two states not a divorce The Russian position in favor of partition has as yet not from each other but a condition that calls for work in the changed the political stand of the Arab Stalinists. They con­ common interests of the two peoples. tinue to oppose partition, although it has cost them a great Economic conditions also dictate a policy of building Jew­ deal of support. ish-Arab unity. Neither the Jewish nor the Arab section of Agrarian reform is vital for the future welfare of the Arab Palestine can exist without the other, if the present living State. The overwhelming majority of the country will be fella­ standards of both Arabs and Jews are to be maintained, or if heen (peasant). A large proportion of the land is in the hands the country is to be able to absorb large-scale immigration. of the effendis (landlords) and even the "landed" peasant has The Arab area, which is primarily agricultural, will have a hardly enough land to produce more than a bare subsistence huge deficit if it does not share in the tariff revenue of the with primitive agricultural methods. While the usurer, who industrial section of Palestine, which will be part of the Jew­ constituted the greatest single millstone around the neck of ish state. The Jewish state needs grain from Arab agriculture the peasant, has temporarily receded into the background as to feed its population and also needs the Arab agricultural a result of war prosperity, he will reappear soon if land is not areas as part of its "internal" market. Both the Jews and the distributed and the state does not offer free or low cost credit Arabs need large-scale irrigation projects like the Jordan Val­ for the modernization of Arab agriculture. ley Authority to raise the productive level of the country and Above all, the Arabs must avoid the path of "irridentism." to increase its ability to absorb immigration. That could lead to nothing but communal war, economic dis­ Economic union can be made to serve as a real bridge be­ location, and the triumph of the most r~actionary forces in tween the two countries. Characteristically, the UN plan pro­ Arab social life. The peace of all Palestine depends on Arab vides for foreign economic rule for at least ten years. Con­ labor accepting the Jews as a nationality in Palestine and, tinued foreign economic rule via the UN will result not in even on the basis of two separate states, taking steps toward Arab-Jewish cooperation but only in the subordination of the re-unifica tion. econ

THE HEW IHTEIHATIOHAL • JANUAa,. It... 19 like the Achduth Avodah and Hashomer Hatzair to lead the ing for struggle while the labor leaders take no steps to crys­ way. It is not sufficient to be for Arab-Jewish unity in the state talize independent workers' detachments, relying only on the apparatus. The organization of federated parallel unions of "national" militia, the Haganah. The reformist leaders of Arabs and Jews (Irgun Mesutaf) is no substitute for a single the Mapai have offered to capitulate and form a broad coali­ united trade union. The need in Palestine today is for a single tion government including the Revisionists. Like all social class-struggle trade-union organization and, above all, for democrats they are willing to cede important beach-heads to mixed political parties of Jewish and Arab workers. the reactionaries and hope that the liberal bourgeoisie will do the job of containing them. A false illusion! The job can only IV be done by the workers and by bold and vigorous leadership. Economically, Jewish Palestine is capitalist. In industry There is a regrouping of forces taking place in the Jewish and trade the "socialist" sector of the economy (cooperatives, labor movement. During the last year a left wing of the Mapai etc.) represents about three to five per cent, according to broke off and, together with the left Poale Zion, formed the Revusky's book, Jews in Palestine. In agriculture, where the Achduth Avodah Party. The Hashomer Hatzair, too, appeared Kibutzim, Kvutzat (collectives) and cooperatives are strongest, for the first time as an independent political party in the last they represent about ten per cent of the cultivated land and elections. Each group received 24,000 votes as compared to the about the same proportion of the Jews engaged in agriculture. 40,000 votes for the Mapai. The Jewish bourgeoisie is at present engaged in an attempt On January 10, 1948, these two groups will have a unity to destroy the basis for this "socialist" economy. They propose conference. No concrete unified program will result, but a the abolition of the national ownership of land via the Jewish vague general manifesto will be issued. The main aim of this National Fund and the stopping of all subsidies to collectives unity is to form a bloc to bargain for governmental posts, to and cooperatives. They argue that the public enterprises were shift' the center of gravity of the coalition to the left, and to necessary when it was difficult and unprofitable to do any job, stop the Mapai from capitulating too much to the right. The but that now "free enterprise" will do a better job. "The actual program will be worked out later, mostly in practice. l\'Ioor has done his work, the ?vIoor may go." The Hashomer Hatzair will drop its slogan of a bi-national Politically, the Mapai (the reformist labor party) is in state and the Achduth Avodah will drop its slogan for a Jew­ office in the "government within a government" which exists ish socialist state in all of Palestine. Both are pro-Russian but in Palestine. But Jewish Palestine faces a real struggle between the Hashomer Hatzair, in practical politics, supports the the labor movement and the Jewish capitalist class which has Anglophile Dr. W~itzman, while the Achduth advocates an tolerated it up to now. active anti-British policy. In relation to the Arab question, the The bourgeois mayor of Tel-Aviv and the mayors of all conference will come out for an Arab-Jewish rapprochement. other major towns in Palestine have demanded a re-organiza­ In Jewish Palestine the united organization will probably not tion of the governmental set-up which would give them con­ favor a single united trade union of Jewish and Arab workers, trol. °They have established a "committee of the Right" to but rather federated (Irgun Meshutoff) separate Jewish and rally all the forces of the bourgeoisie. Together with the Arab unions. The manifesto will not demand immediate in­ Union of Industrialists they are giving aid to the strike-break­ dependence of Palestine but will call for strengthening of the ing, anti-Marxist, black union set up by the Revisionists-the UN supervision of Palestine. Federation of National Labor. They have the support of the Whatever anyone may say about partition and the estab­ semi-fascist Revisionists, who polled 24,500 votes in the last I ishment of a Jewish state (that for the first time it gives rec­ election. about ten per cent of the total. ognition to Jewish national aspirations, etc.) one thing is cer· ]n the future the Revisionist party as such will take a back tain: the existence of the Jewish state in a partitioned Pales­ sea t. It will work through the Irgun, which has announced tine will not solve the Jewish problem. Small states can never that it will transform itself into a legal party. The Revision­ solve any major social problem. ists will attempt to enforce their hated domestic policies under the cloak of the Irgun's prestige as an anti-British resistance The overwhelming bulk of the Jewish people will remain force. Together with the clericalists of the Misrachi (5,000), outside of Palestine. The same force-capitalism-that gave Agudah (5,000) and possibly the Paole Hamisrachi (24,000). rise to modern exterminationist anti-Semitism still exists. For plus a possible 10,000 for the Paole Agudath Israel, the right­ all Jews, workers and middle class alike, must realize that the wing forces can perhaps muster fifty per cent of the vote. What rontinued existence of capitalism means the extermination of is more important. by grace of the reformist labor leaders they the Jews. Their only hope for survival is in the destruction of now control the municipalities and the police, to which will the breeder of fascist barbarism. For Jews, socialism is not be added the military power of "the Irgun and the economic merely a question of "ideals," socialism is not only a question power of the Union of Industrialists. of something "for the common good," but a stark national and personal necessity. The statement "socialism or barbarism" DanCJer of Civil War has a special and ghastly meaning to the Jews. To them it The danger of armed civil war fomented by the fascists is means: "socialism or extermination." increased, no decreased, by the recent agreement between the The establishment of a Jewish state opens a new era for Haganah and the Irgun. This agreement provides among socialist-Zionist Jews. The Zionist goal has been realized, but other things that, once the Jewish state is established, the the Jewish problem remains. A Jewish state will exist in Pales· Irgun will be absorbed into the official militia of the state. tine, but the danger of extermination still faces ten million \Vhile they will be "absorbed" to the extent of being sub­ Jews, who will not or cannot be absorbed by Palestine. For ject to the same top command, they will be allowed to keep socialist-Zionist Jews to be consistent, there can be only one their identity and their own closely knit organization. This answer to the new situation-a shift to greater unity with the will enable them to throw their military strength into the revolutIOnary party throughout the world. political struggle. The armed bands of the Right are prepar- AI. FINDLEY.

20 THI NIW INTI.NATIONAL • JANUAI'. 1941 Portrait of James Connolly-II Connolly as Nationalist and Internationalist

A factor which helps to explain other countries in return for those manufactured goods Ireland why many American Marxists have often been rigid and needs but does not produce herself. Thus we will abolish at one stroke the dread of foreign compe­ schematic is that they have not sufficiently grasped the prob­ tion and render perfectly needless any attempt to create an indus­ lems of capitalism from the standpoint of a backward coun­ trial hell in Ireland under the specious pretext of "developing our try with an undeveloped economy, in contrast to those of an resources." advanced country with a modem economy. Because of this, Apply to manufacture the same social principle. Let the co­ operative organization of the workers replace the war of the I think that Connolly should have an especial interest and classes under capitalism and transform the capitalist himself from significance for Americans. He was a Marxist who came from an irresponsible hunter after profit into a public servant, fulfilling the depressed working class of a backward country, a nation a public function and under public control. which had not won national sovereignty. And speaking along the same line, he discussed the proposal Once we realize this fact, seeming contradictions in his of creating peasant proprietors instead of a landlord class. He work and his beliefs can be explained. Connolly, besides being wrote: a Marxist and a revolutionary leader who came from the work­ ... have our advocates of peasant proprietary really considered ing class, was also a nationalist and a believing Roman Cath­ thp economic tendencies of the time, and the development of the olic. He was born amidst conditions of life which feed dis­ mechanical arts in the agricultural world! The world is progres­ content: the alternative to discontent in conditions such as sive, and peasant proprietary, which a hundred years ago might those of his childhood is an attitude of submissiveness. Re­ have been a boon, would now be powerless to save from ruin the bellion and discontent offered Connolly the road to develop­ agriculture of Ireland. ment of his own personality, his individuality. The small farmers could no longer compete with the mam­ He was but one of a mass oppressed by capitalism; at the moth farms of America and Australia. He continued by point­ same time, this mass bore most heavily the burden which was ing out how the American farmer, with his thousands of acres imposed as a result of English control of Ireland. As Connolly and his machinery could outsell the Irish farmer in the Eng­ studied and matured, he came to see that a complicated series lish market. of burdens lay on the back of the common people of Ireland: Connolly Versus Stalinism there was more than one oppressor. He was able to grasp the complicated nature of the problems which were involved in Economic backwardness is a relative phenomenon. It must the Irish problem. be gauged from the standpoint of the world market. At the Reading his work, or the accounts of his life, one is struck present time the phenomenon of backwardness is more com­ by the fact that there was little subjective blockage in Con­ plicated than it ever was in the past. Advanced countries such nolly's nature. He was direct and simple. He was capable of as England are being placed in a position that is at least re­ drawing clear and warranted correlations. He was able to motely analogous to that of the Irish farmers in Connolly'S measure actions, large and small, in terms of his ultimate aim time. British workers must work harder and get less than the -the aim of a democratic and socialist world. His own per­ American workers. This is a consequence of competition on sonal experiences and observations were drawn into his the world market. It is to Connolly'S merit that he grasped this thought; and on the basis of these he was able to grasp facts fact and stated it simply and clearly in his very first years as from his studies with amazing lucidity and to arrive at firm a socialist. theoretical conclusions. Without the access to the inside knowledge of many states­ men, without the academic training of many economists, Con­ Urged Collective Agriculture nolly saw the relationship of the Irish problem to the prob­ There was considerable variety of experiences in his own lems of the world market. In simple language he was able to life. He saw at first hand the conditions of life of workers state the nature of the impact which the world market made in Ireland, in Scotland, in America. He was clearly aware of on Ireland, on its farmers and also on its workers. His politi­ differences between Ireland and America. Even before he cal nationalism was not turned into an excuse for "economic" came to the United States he had studied economics by himself nationalism. He wanted Irishmen to be free men, free and and had written about the differences in methods of agricul­ proud and dignified: he did not believe in the development tural production in Ireland and in the United States. Thus of national resources in a backward country at the expense of he wrote: the moral and social development of the people of that coun­ The agriculture of Ireland can no longer compete with the scien­ try. tifically equipped farmers of America; therefore, the only hope In this sense he may be contrasted with Joseph Stalin. that now remains is to abandon competition altogether as a rule Connolly saw the need of collectivization. But to him, collec­ of life, to organize agriculture as a public service under the con­ tivization must (a) be undertaken in order to feed the Irish trol of boards of management elected by the agricultural popula­ tion (no longer composed of farmers and laborers, but of free citi­ people, and (b) be undertaken democratically. Stalin's forced zens with equal responsibility and equal honor), and responsible to collectivization was diametrically different from that pro­ them and the nation at large, and with all the mechanical and scien­ posed by the young Connolly. As Manya Gordon demonstrates tific aids to agriculture the entire resources of the nation can place factually in her book, The Russian Worker Before and After at their disposal. Let the produce of Irish soil go first to feed the Irish people, and after a sufilcient store has been retained to in­ Lenin (New York, 1941), the Russian people as a whole got sure of that bein·g accomplished, let the surplus be exchanged with less food after collectivization than they did before it. Collef'-

THE NEW INTERNATIONAL· JANUARY, 194. 21 tivization provided Stalin with a labor supply needed for in­ direct to the consumer, but no middleman is permitted to step into dustrialization. The development of national resources was the transaction. implicit in the implementation of the theory of "socialism in This last sentence is further suggestive. O'Neill intro­ one country"; but all this, as we know, was done at the ex­ duced this reference to the middleman as an obvious appeal pense of the Russian people. to prejudice and as a rationalization. In general, he gave no Connolly here had a very clear insight, one which should clear picture of Soviet agriculture; at the same time he stressed be carefully considered by those who have argued that he was the chaos of capitalist agriculture. He threatened to outdis­ too nati'onalistic to be a socialist. His nationalism was, in tance American agricultural production with a minimum of reality, consistent with his internationalism. And both were percentages. And here is a sample of his general style and consistently developed not only in political but also in eco­ method of Stalinizing the tradition of Connolly: nomic terms. . .. by 1926 it could be said that agriculture had been saved [in A good way of testing Connolly's clarity would be to con­ the Soviet Union] .... But hand in hand with this development, trast his ideas-such as those quoted above-with the ideas of there was not only an increased prosperity for small and middle the Irish Stalinist, Brian O'Neill, in The War for the Land farmers; the wealthiest peasants and the kulaks-the hated gom­ in Ireland. Both here and in his book Easter Week, O'Neill been men! of the village, who worked their farms by hired laborers and who were often, in addition, shopkeepers, money-lenders or pays tribute to Connolly. publicans-had their position strengthened, with a corresponding 'Vriting in the 1930s, O'Neill dealt with the world agrarian hardening of their capitalist psychology. And while agriculture had crisis, and he had no trouble demonstrating that the Irish been restored, it had not developed on the new social basis, in the sense that while in the towns the means of production were IQng farmer was the victim of the world market and produced at a since socialized, agriculture, in which the ownership of the land grave disadvantage in competition because of the develop­ and the implements was not centralized, was relatively much more ment of farming in advanced countries. Attempting to point backward. the way out, O'Neill quoted the passage I have given above. The reader can learn about the real situation which was And the way out proposed by O'Neill is described as that masked by this double talk by reading Manya Gordon's study taken by the Soviet Union. with planned economy and col­ cited above. lectivized agriculture. As part of his proof O'Neill offered A contrast between Connolly and O'Neill will show the culled statistics from the various Soviet sources, but he did difference between a real socialist and a Stalinized intellec­ not compare and evaluate them. He may well have been Slll­ tual. In Connolly'S heatee passages, there is indignation, in­ cere, but from the standpoint of the present it is clear that dignation over the condition of the Irish masses. Contrast this he depended on the usual bureaucratic generalities and ab­ with the way that O'Neill uses phrases like gombeen men, stractions. The Irish problem was treated as though it were money-lenders and publicans in order to create Irish enthu­ the Russian problem: win a "third-period" revolution on pa­ siasm for Stalinism, which drove the gombeen men out of per and then Ireland could be modeled after the Soviet Union. Russia just as truly as St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ire­ 'Vithout any real relevance to his argument, O'Neill insisted land. that the increase in the number of tractors and harvesters in the United States from 1910 to 1930 should have permitted • American agriculture to double its sowing. This did not hap­ Connolly absorbed the democratic national tradition of pen; American agricultural production increased by only ] 3.5 Ireland. When he released the first issue of his paper, The per cent during this period. Needless to say, I am not an Workers Republic, in Dublin on August 13, 1898, he stated: economist or a statistician. But I can see the utter shabbiness We are Socialists because we see in socialism not only the of arguments of this kind. modern application of the social principle which underlay the Bre­ hon laws of our ancestors, but because we recognize in it the only Attempt to Stalinize Connolly principle by which the working class can in their turn emerge in I mention this fact because, when I originally read the diviniby of FREEMEN, with the right to live as men and not as mere profit-making machines for the service of others. Weare O'Neill's book in 1936, it fooled me. And the way that Stalin­ Republicans because we are Socialists, and therefore enemies to ism fools persons untrained in economics and statistics can all privileges; and because we would have the Irish people com­ thus be suggested. Isolated statistics are used falsely. By a plete masters of their own destinies, nationally and internationally, meaningless comparison of abstracted statistics, a false con­ fully competent to work for their own salvation. ception of production in the Soviet Union relative to the Connolly as Internationalist United States is indicated. We now know that the Irish work­ Spiritually or intellectually, he was a product of the great ers and farmers, bad as was their lot, fared better than did the French Revolution, of the Irish tradition of rebellion, of the Russian workers and farmers during the period of forced col­ Marxist international movement, and also of the Catholic lectivization. After the famine in Russia in the early 1930s, Church. And, as we have noted, he himself lived the hard the Russian government was forced to make concessions: it life of the workers. He arrived at his ideas by patient and permitted a certain portion of the agricultural product pro­ methodical study. And the aim of his thought and activity duced on collective farms to be sold directly on the market. was to work for genuine freedom. Once when a lady was dis­ Here is the way O'Neill described this: turbed by a speech he had delivered, he answered her remarks The produce of farms is disposed of in two ways. It can be by declaring: "Revolution is my business." His total life ex­ handed over entirely at a fixed price to the cooperative organiza­ perience led him forward to revolutionary action. He saw tions, to be distributed by them to the consumers, or twenty per this action as taking place in Ireland. But he linked it with cent can be sold direct (a method introduced in 1932 to induce the collectives to market more of their produce). The advantages of the idea of an international struggle for socialism and democ­ this latter modification are that larger supplies are available at racy. lower prices due to the more direct path from the producer to the 'Vhen away from Ireland he participated in the socialist. consumer, while the collectives are often able to receive more for their produce. Vegetables grown in the garden may also be sold L Money-lenders. 22 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL· JANUARY, 1948 movement in Scotland and in America. When the First World fire necessary to seriously imperil a dominion rooted for 700 years War broke out, he called for action not only in Ireland but in the heart of their country. They were all anxious enough for freedom, but realizing the enormous odds against them, and being elsewhere. He saluted Karl Liebknecht. And when there was explicitly told by their leaders that they must not expect any change a false rumor that Liebknecht had died, he wrote: in their conditions of social BUbjection, even if BUcce88ful, they as a body shrank from the contest, and left only the purest minded and ..• we cannot draw upon the future for a draft to pay our pres­ most chivalrous of their class to face the odds and glut the ven­ ent duties. There is no moratorium to postpone the payment of the geance of the tyrant-a warning to those in all countries who neg­ debt the Socialists owe to the cause; it can only be paid now. Paid lect the vital truth that successful revolutions are not the product it may well be in martyrdom...• If our German comrade, Lieb­ of our brains, but of ripe material conditions~ knecht, has paid the price, perhaps the others may yet nerve them­ selves for that sacrifice.... All hail, then, to our continental com­ Connolly's conclusion to his study affirms the view that rade, who, in a world of imperial and financial brigands and cow­ labor must take the lead in the liberation of Ireland. It must ardly trimmers and compromisers, showed mankind that men still know how to cUe for the holiest of all causes-the sanctity of the be the most forward, the most daring champion of both na­ human soul, the practical brotherhood of the human race. tional libera tion and social justice in Ireland; it must assem­ ble all discontented Irishmen around it. This is the road to Connolly worked on Labour in Irish History for many the re-conquest of Ireland. Thus: years. During this period he was also engaged in many other activities, editing, lecturing, organizing, leading strikes, par­ As we have again and again pointed out, the Irish question is ticipating in anti-British demonstrations, traveling from Ire­ a social question, the whole age-long fight of the Irish people against their oppressors resolves itself in the last analysis into a land to America and back to Ireland, and at the same time fight for the mastery of the means of life, the sources of prod"c­ earning a modest living for himself and his family. This work, tion, in Ireland. Who would own and control the land? The people along with The Re-Conquest of Ireland7 offers an economic or the invaders? and social history of Ireland. Connolly claimed that capital­ Here in Connolly's view was "the bottom question of Irish ism was a foreign importation brought to Ireland by the Eng­ politics." But: lish. With capitalism, feudalism was also introduced into Ire­ land. The life of the Gaelic clans, where property was owned ... it is undeniable that for two hundred years at least all Irish political movements ignored this fact, and were conducted by the clans, was in consequence broken up. In clan life a rudi­ by men who did not look below the political surface. These men to mentary form of democracy had been practiced. Then he arouse the passions of the people invoked the memory of social traced the course of the development of capitalism in Ireland, wrongs, such as evictions and famines, but for these wrongs pro­ a subject nation. He related this development to the succes­ posed only political remedies, such as changes in taxation or trang­ sive struggles for national independence. These struggles he ferences of the seat of government (class rule) from one country to another.... The revolutionists of the past were wiser, the Irish evaluated and interpreted from a socialist standpoint. Early Socialists are wiser today. In their movement the North and South in Labour in Irish HistorY7 he quoted, as a premise, the fol­ will again clasp hands, again it will be demonstrated, as in '98, lowing passage from Marx: that the pressure of a common exploitation can make enthusiastic rebels out of a Protestant working class, earnest champions of civil That in every historical epoch the prevailing method of eco­ and religious liberty out of Catholics, and out of both a united so­ nomic production and exchange, and the social organization neces­ cial democracy. sarily following from it, forms the basis upon which alone can be explained the political and intellectual history of that epoch. Connolly's basic lines of thought were continued from Labour in Irish History to The Re-Conquest of Ireland. The He traces the alterations ia the prevailing method of pro­ first sentence of the foreword to this volume expresses its duction in Ireland through feudalism to capitalism, and he guiding thought: describes the class character of every movement which strug­ gled for Irish freedom. The tradition of social struggle in the The underlying idea of this work is that the labor movement Irish national movement is here outlined step by step, gener­ of Ireland must set itself the re-conquest of Ireland as its final aim, that their re-conquest involves taking possession of the entire coun­ alized, evaluated and in this way ordered in terms of a coher­ try, all its powers and wealth-production and all its natural re­ ent analysis and doctrine. The lesson which he persistently sources, and organizing these on a co-operative basis for the good draws from the analysis of Irish struggle is that the social of all. question is inseparable from the political question. A True Prophet Class Line in Nationalist Movement Following a historical account of the conquest of Ireland, He reveals that one of the factors involved in the failure Connolly describes the conditions of life of the Irish masses of Irish rebellion is the fact that there was always more than in the early twentkth century, in Dublin and Belfast; he dis­ one class. This lesson is presented in his first chapter, and it cusses problems and questions of democracy and of political is then illustrated by a series of lucid analyses which are con­ morale and morality, quotes statistics and otherwise reveals in cerned with every important movement for liberation in Irish a voice of eloquent and, passionate indignation the moral and history. He wrote: physical consequences of exploitation; he deals with the prob­ During the last hundred years every generation in Ireland has lems of education, describes the position and fate of women, witnessed an attempted rebellion against English rule. Every such and analyzes the value and the possibility of the cooperative conspiracy or rebellion had drawn the majority of its adherents movement. His book reveals vision and idealism, and at the from the lower orders in town and country, yet under the inspira­ tion of a few middle class doctrinaires the social question has been same time no detail concerning the misery and wretchedness rigorously excluded from the field of action to be covered by the of the masses is too small for his attention. At one point in rebellion if successful; in hopes that by each exclusion it would be the book, he states: possible to conciliate the upper class and enlist them in the strug­ gle for freedom.. . For the only true prophets are they who carve out the future The result has been in nearly every case the same. The workers, which they announce. though furnishing the greatest proportion of recruits to the ranks of the revolutionists, and consequently of victims to the prison and Connolly here announced a future for Ireland. This ideal the scaffold, C'ould not be imbued en mrtBIJ'8 with the revolutionary future-a socialist commonwealth-was the standard by which

THE NEW INTERNATIONAL· JANUARY, 1948 23 he measured the Irish present, and it was the basis of his po­ the power to realize the desires of their constituents scarcely en­ litical faith. In action, he sought to lead Ireland toward the ters into the matter. It is not by its power to realize high ideals a people will and must be judged, but by the standard of the ideals realization of that ideal; in his writing, he sought to implant themselves. this faith and this ideal in the minds of Irishmen. He wrote: This quotation furnishes a suggestive insight into the A people are not to be judged by the performance of their great thought of Connolly. His thinking was both practical and men, nor to be estimated spiritually by the intellectual conquests of their geniuses. A truer standard by which the spiritual and visionary; it gave energy and direction to a fighting faith and mental measurement of a people can be taken in modern times is a concept of a free future. In our next article we will discuss by that picture drawn of itself by itself when it, at the ballot-box, further aspects of the thought of James Connolly. surrenders the care of its collective destiny into the hands of its elected representatives. JAMES T. FARRELL. The question whether such elected persons have or have not (Copyright 1948 by James T. Farrell) The Neo-Stalinist Type Notes on a New Political Ideology

[Subjoined to the following article are We are here discussing the Stalinists, he found written in official Stalinist or­ two book reviews which were l,vrUten inde­ not in Russia where they hold power, gans, one must find out for oneself the pendently of each other and of thi8 article. but in the capitalist countries. And here The three are brought together here as a astonishing and increasing frequency preliminary discus8ion of an interesting as­ -to be sure, step by step with the degen­ with which this is encountered from Sta­ pect of the natwre of Stalini8m today.-Ed.] eration of Stalinist Russia-a change has linist sympathizers. A very important been noticeable for more than a decade. fact: not from Stalinist worker-sympa­ • thizers, almost only from intellectual Evolution of Neo-Stalinism A new political species has and petty-bourgeois sympathizers. come into existence in our own day. It took visible shape with the notori­ But even this is not the full-flowered The existence of different species of ous Popular-Front line of 1935 and the' form. If it were, one should not yet, per­ plants and animals was recognized long influx of Stalinized liberals into the haps, speak of a new political species. before scientific analysis decided upon Communist Party organizations and pe­ We are concerned with a further phe­ the differentiating characteristics which ripheries. We begin to notice that. in nomenon: the existence of Stalinist sym­ classified them. Since then. however, sci­ arguing with a Stalinist member or sym­ /Jathizers who do not even consider ence has decided that the onion belongs pathizer, more and more, often it was no themselves socialists of any kind-who to the very same family as the lily, but longer possible to "score a point" by fire not for socialism! that the Douglas fir tree is not truly a proving that Stalinist policy was in con­ N ow this should not be confused with fir tree at all; and the common name tradiction with good Marxism or even our belief that Stalinism is not really so­ ell flower is used not for one genus but Leninism: cialism, or that Stalinism and socialism Jeven different ones. "So a Popular-Front government is have nothing in common. The point is As Dwight Macdonald likes to say: nothing but the old-fashioned reformist that, while this has been our belief for things are no longer as simple as they coalition government? Well, what was a long time, the typical Stalinist is a were in the good old days, when a bell­ wrong with the coalition governments Stalinist because his belief is opposite. flower was simply a bellflower-and a -except that thel'e were no communists Not so the neo-Stalinist. socialist was simply a socialist. in them?" Or: "Lenin said we cannot This non-socialism - even anti-social­ Today there are not only seven quite support imperialist governments in thei'r ism - of the neo-Stalinist may take more distinct "bell flowers" but perhaps a larg­ wars? Well, that was before a socialist than one form. Henry Wallace and Dr. er variety of "socialists," and understand­ state existed in the world." Frederick Schumann in America, the ably both raw workers and raw intellec­ Naturally, these were not the usual Dean of Canterbury in England, all tuals are confused. Yet science thinks it official answers, and we ascribed them deny that they are for introducing so­ has clarified something when bellflower (not without justice) to the ignorance cialism into their own country or into is distinguished from bellflower, social­ and lack of tradition of CP neophytes any other country. But, as Wallace puts ist (genus Bolshevik) is distinguished IItill wet behind the ears with liberalism. it, the "Russian system" is the form of from socialist (genus Afenshevik) and the But the development of this sea-change "economic democracy" which seems to socialist family is distinguished from the in the Stalinist ranks did' not end with make Russians happy: it's all right for Stalinist family. the abandonment of Popular-Frontism them and "we can learn a lot" from it. in 1939; it spread from the peripheries Does this mean then that (for exam­ • to the cadres of the CP; and it took ever ple) a Schumann, while not for social­ The ne'wness of the new political spe­ nuder forms. ism in America, is a "kind of socialist" cies, which we here call the neo-Stalinist, We cite a later-born symptomatic re­ because he is for socialism in Russia? forced itself upon attention before its sponse: tlNo, there's no democracy in Perish the thought. Schumann is not the differentiating marks could be isolated. Russia. Why should there be? You can't l ype of naive Stalinist sympathizer who Perhaps it is still too early to pigeon­ trust uneducated workers to know what's thinks that all Russian workers spend hole it accurately. But at least a few good for them." half the year in health resorts and sani­ notes are in order at this point. Since this is not the sort of thing to tariums.

24 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL. JANUARY, 194. What attracts him -about Russia is not cialist"? Then Stalin is too, it goes with­ The first "kind of socialism" we find illusions about its effectuation of social­ out saying. But it is no part of the pur­ analyzed there is ... "reactionary social­ ist ideals, which are as alien to him as pose of these notes to demonstrate that ism." The red blackbird again! Why re­ they are to Stalin, but it is a feeling of "totalitarian socialism" exists in the actionary? Because these movements, new possibilities inherent in a complete­ same limbo as red blackbirds, liquid ice which sj)oke in the name of socialism, ly statified economy which is not bur­ and honest ward-heelers. had thei'f roots in classes alien to the dened by concern for the masses nor The point is once again that we are proletariat. slowed up by pandering to them-"new dealing with a jJOlitical ideology which, One of the subdivisions under "Reac­ possibilities," naturally, for the elite, not in rejecting ca1Jitaiism, looks not towa'rd tionary Socialism" is petty-bourgeois so­ for the rabble. a socialist reorganization of society but cialism. Already in the Manifesto Marx 1.ITotalitarian Socialism" Discovered toward bureaucratic collectivism-which and Engels explained: "The industrial accepts the complete statification of the and political supremacy of the bourgeoi­ This is indeed what sent even Eric means of production and the abolition sie threatens it (the petty bourgeoisie) Johnston and the ultra-reactionary Ed­ of capitalist property relations, but con­ with certain destruction; on the one die Rickenbacker back from Russia sciously reiects the derisive role of the hand, from the concentration of capital; burbling with enthusiasm over "what 7Oo'rking class and proletarian democra­ on the other, from the rise of a revolu­ we can learn from Russia." To drop into cy. tionary prol eta ria t." our own language for a moment: what This is the new political species-the In this social situation, the radical attracts them about Russia is not its "so­ nco-Stalinist type. cialist" farade but its bureaucratic-col­ peuy bourgeois rejected capitalism, at­ lectivist realities. • tacked it, and "dissected with great acuteness the contradiction in the con­ Ex-Ambassador Joseph Davies made it \Vhat are the social roots of this neo­ explicit in Mission to Moscow: the Rus­ ditions of the modern proletariat." Here Stalinism? are Bernard Shaw's ancestors. But they sian Revolution of Lenin and Trotsky We begin by rejecting the notion that is dead; Russia is moving in "our" di­ equally rejected the working class, which it. is a personal or individual aberration, was the social force which pressed them rection (and he did not mean moving to be explained merely by this one's se­ toward the de-nationalization of indus­ from the other side. For them too (as nility, that one's cracked pot, or the the Manifesto says later of the utopian try); and the new Russia above all has other one's careerism. This may have to nothing in common with Trotsky'S old­ socialists), "Only from the point of view be argued. but not here and n~w. of being the most suffering class does the fashioned ideas about socialist revolu­ We suggest that the two book reviews tion. proletaria t exist for them" -or, if not as immediately following cast an interest­ the most suffering class, at least as fellow­ To be sure, Johnston and Rieken­ ing light on this question: the one by sufferers. backer did not become pro-Russian ill J. M. Fenwick does this explicitly, and Where then did they point, if neither orientation; but Davies lived to raise the analysis of Bernard Shaw by Howe to the capitalist class nor the proletariat? his voice in defense of Russian spies converges toward the same point. But In 1848 Marx noted that this breed of caught red-handed rifling atomic secrets Shaw was not a Stalinist? Precisely for socialist looked back with nostalgia to in Canada-a strange note from a patri­ tha treason. "the old property relations and the old otic American immortalized by Warner For now that we have done emphasiz­ society" -which at that time meant the Brothersl ing that neo-Stalinism is a new political society of the Middle Ages. There is a second form, not essentially phenomenon, it is necessary to make different-that of the type who blandly clear that it is a new plant from old In our day Wallace still combines hi') speaks of Russia as "totalitarian social-' roots. I think it is biologically correct pro-R ussianism wi th sighs for the good ism" and supports it as such. After all, to say that a plant which has migrated old horse-and-buggy days of small enter­ just another kind of socialism, you see, from one climate and soil to an entirely prise, before monopoly. But a scientist and everybody knows there are so many different environment can develop into like Harlow Shapley is too technology­ kinds of socialisml Of course one hopes an entirely different species in time-but minded and a Schumann is too sophisti­ that the A merican people will prove in­ whether correct or no, this analogy ex­ cated for this sort of nonsense. For them telligent enough to merit some kind of presses what has happened in the politi­ rejection of both capitalism and the pro­ democratic socialism, but meanwhile cal sphere. What are the old roots? letariat leads straight to the embrace of one accepts half a loaf. The people never Stalinism., as representative of a social "Reactionary Socialism" and know what's good for them, as we have system in which they think they can already heard. The Communist Manifesto hope for a new social role for the mid­ And exactly what is "totalitarian so­ For a starting point in analyzing this dle-class intelligentsia. This is (mostly cialism"? We have become familiar with new phenomenon we go back first, be­ was) likewise the social appeal of a it: it is a society where the state owns yond Shaw's time, to the Communist movement like Technocracy. the means of production and a totali­ Manifesto of Marx and Engels. Indeed But in 1848, these petty-bourgeois so­ tarian bureaucracy "owns" the state and -to Section III (often referred to as the cialists who yearned to escape from be­ oppresses the people under a police re­ "obsolete" section) of the work whose ing crushed to death or futility between gime. It is the same thing which the So­ hundredth anniversary is observed thi'i the upper and nether millstones of capi­ cialist Workers Party (Cannonites) year. This is the section which analyzes tlll lind labor-into whose embrace did wryly calls a "degenerated workers' the various "kinds of socialism" existing they fall? We have seen that Marx noted state." It is what we call bureaucratic in 1848. By the time the Second Inter­ their eyes were turned back to the old collectivism-to use shop talk again. national was founded, all of these move­ feudal social relations. And looking in Is this type also "another kind of so- ments were already dead. that direction we find another "kind of

THE NEW INTEINATIONAI. • JANUAlr. "'" 25 socialism," which the Manifesto indeed to point out that all of the above-men­ are, then, a political (not simply a psy­ Oinalyzes first of all-feudal socialism. tioned capitulated to one of these two chological) tendency. But they do not symmetrical forms of totalitarianism, constitute a social stratum. In order to arouse sympathy the aris­ tocracy were obliged to lose sight, appar­ given half a reasonable opportunity and It would be absurd to speak of them ently, of their own interests and to formu­ incentive (Shaw, as Howe points out, as, say, an embryonic bureaucratic-col­ late their indictment against the bourgeoi­ to both). lectivist class.2 The Voltaires and Dide­ sie in the interest of the exploited working Not accidentally-as we Marxists love class alone. Thus the aristocracy took their rots were ideological heralds of capital­ rev- nge by singing lampoons on their new to say (to the disgust of people who pre­ ism but were not the embryonic bour­ ma:::.ter, and whispering in his ears sinister fer a little elbow room for historical im­ geoisie. pI'ophesies of coming catastrophe. provisation). For the basic political char~ In this way arose feudal socialism: half acter of these reformists was fixed in a Indeed, one cannot speak of an em­ lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of deep-rooted distrust of mass upsurge bryonic bureaucratic-collectivist class at the past, half menace of the future; at from below, fear of the million-headed all by mere analogy with the birth-pro­ times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criti­ cesses of capitalism. As a private-proper­ cism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very mass in motion, and lack of belief in the heart's core, but always ludicrous in its social capacity of the working class. ty-owning class, the capitalists could as­ effect, through total incapacity to compre­ They placed their faith in bourgeois sume a definite social identity long be­ hend the march of modern history. democracy. That is much more difficult fore they even bid for state power. But The aristocracy, in order to rally the by its very nature, a bureaucratic-collec­ people to save them, waved the proletarian to do nowadays and getting harder all alms-bag in front of a banner.! But the the time. tivist class can exist as a definite class people, so often as it joined them, saw on If a bookkeeper like Sidney Webb only under its own social system. For their hindquarters the old feudal coat of could froth at Lenin but beam primly individually the members of this class aI'ms, and deserted with loud and irreverent own no means of production, and col­ laughter. over Stalin; if an intellectual snob like Shaw could grow rapturous over the lectively they own the means of produc­ Here, at the beginnings of capitalism, charlatan Duce; if Noske could prefer tion only through control of a state we find a rival ruling class camouflaging capitulation to Hitler even to the mild which does so. Insofar as the elements its interests under a synthetic working­ pangs of emigration; if Renner could which may later germinate into this class class movement in order to carryon its get blue 'in the face when the Vienna incubate under capitalism, they exist in own class struggle, using the proletariat masses in the streets shouted "Dictator­ a social system where they do not as yet as a base of operations and pell. y-bour­ ship of the proletariat! Soviet power!" have any special and uniform relation to geois ideologists as lieutenants. in 1918, but act as Stalin's quisling in the process of production. Reformism to Stalinism Austria at a later date-then it is only The ideologists of neo-Stalinism are because the alternatives were to throw merely the tendrils shot ahead by the Today, at the other end of capital­ in their lot with the revolutionary work­ phenomena - fascism and Stalinism - ism's life, in the days of its degeneration, ing class or else forget about serious pol­ which "outline the social and political we see another rival ruling class using itics. And these were men whose brain form of a neo-barbarism" (Trotsky). We the same methods. In the capitalist neurons developed around the ideas of have taken a look at the coat of arms on countries Stalin's agents also "formulate socialism and Marxism. How much eas­ their hindquarters, as Marx recommend­ their indictment against the bourgeoisie ier the process is for men like Wallace ed, but it is too early to desert with loud in the interest of the exploited working and Schumann and-God be willing­ laughter. What is still needed is the dou­ class alone." Half echo of the past, half the Dean of Canterbury! bled fist. menace of the future! The people we have been discussing HAL DRAPER The Manifesto dissects a social type which at that time gravitated toward aristocratic reaction and today can gravi­ CARLSON: "HOMO STALINENSIS" tate toward Stalinist reaction. It is the same type which, in the middle age of The past decade in most Such individuals are most easily ob­ capitalism, took the form of the extreme capitalist countries has witnessed the servable in Europe, where social ten­ right-wing reformist socialist and pro­ emergence of a new socio-political type sions are greater. They are particularly duced the Shaws, Webbs, Noskes, Karl identified variously by such names as definable in England, where the absence Renners and Martynovs. crypto - communist, proto - Stalinist, Sta­ of a mass Stalinist party prevents their I have deliberately listed here only a linoid liberal, etc. being absorbed in a larger political few stalwarts of the Second Interna­ What characterizes these persons is, milieu. Konni Zilliacus, the "left" La­ tional who lived on into the period of alternatively, either the pursuit of capi­ bor Party member; Joseph Needham, fascism and Stalinism. At the risk of be­ talist aims using the Stalinist deforma­ the biochemist; or the so-called "Red" ing accused of stacking the cards, I wish tion of socialist methods, or the pursuit Dean of Canterbury are representative 1. This sentence, as well as the first para­ of Stalinist aims by the employment of types from abroad. Henry Wallace is graph of this passage, should be read aloud ct to Rnyone-including any "kind of Trotsky- capitalist methods. Not infrequently good domestic example. 18t"-who continues to claim that the Com­ both methods are employed simultane­ While there is a certain amount of munist Party is a working-class party in gplte of all for the reason that it directs its ously, especially when the conjunctural interpenetration with the "fellow-trav­ oppea) to the working class or that it uses interests of Russia and a given capitalist elers" of the depression period both in the working class as a base of operations­ i.e., "waves the proletarian alms-bag In front country are the same-for instance, as of a. banner." According to this notion of 2. J. M. Fenwick, in his review of Carlson's lome of our contemporaries (Cannon, John- was the case during the Second World biography (below), speaks of the neo-Stalin­ 80n), the reactionary - feudal movement ot War when both Russia and her capital­ ist type as "bureaucratic-collectivist man." 1 which Marx speaks was also a "kind of work­ do not think this should be interpreted In the Ing-class party" In its day. ist allies sought the defeat of Gennany. sense I am crit1cizloa: here.

26 THE NEW INTEItNATlONAL • JANUAlr. 194. personnel and in social characteristics, would be no unnecessary saluting." Be­ army was probably the fact that he was yet in what may be called the bureau­ fore being executed, military operations the son of a poor Congregationalist min· cratic - collectivist man we have a new were explained in their entirety to the ister. The atmosphere of the Protestant formation. In the pre-war fellow-traveler men. The political background of the ethic, so well described by the sociolo­ was still visible the last Hush of socialist war and Allied war aims were similarly gist Max Weber, was unquestionably in­ idealism. It is not insignificant that even developed. fluential in the development of the dem­ the term has become rarer in the active The ideological investiture was, how­ ocratic aspects of his system. political vocabulary. The bureaucratic­ ever, purely capitalist. The polarities Early in his Marine Corps career he collectivist type, opportur¥st when were of the standard aggressor-victim read Upton Sinclair, Theodore Dreiser patching up a career, brutal when in and fascism-democracy type. On the and Sinclair Lewis. By as late as 1927, power, is a product of the economic, po­ personal level there was a total absence however, when he was witness to the litical and moral decline of our times. of a policy of fraternization with Japan­ bloody collapse of the revolutionary up­ The activity of such types in Euro­ ese soilliers. "Can you cut a Jap's throat surge in China, he preserved an imperi­ pean areas controlled by Russia, and without flinching?" Carlson would .ask. alist attitude toward Far Eastern events. their more circumscribed activity in the "Can you choke him to death without But at this time he fell under the influ­ United States, lend an interest to study­ puking?" But he would explain, relates ence of Admiral Mark L. Bristol, a lib· ing the evolution of these ambivalent his biographer, "that this wasn't a race eral in terms of naval thinking, who did individuals. The development of their war or a war of color against color." not believe that an emotional attitude mentality is not necessarily a unilinear Carlson's command was, of course, Jim toward the Orient was a substitute for a one. The recently published biographyl Crow. serious study of it. He also initiated an educational program among Marine en­ of Evans Carlson, the famous command­ Standard military morale builders. er of the Marine Second Raider Battal­ listed men. When he was transferred to such as prayer, patriotism, and unit Nicaragua Carlson began to apply en­ ion during World War II, is exception­ pride, were applied with maximum in­ lightened methods in dealing with na­ ally interesting in that it shows the de­ tensity by Carlson. Physical condition· velopment of this mentality in one of tive troops under his command (he ing was exceptionally severe~ This pro­ spoke to them exclusively in Spanish, the most inhibiting of all spheres-the gram was applied to an elite group: one for instance), but of course these were military. thousand men personally selected by democratic methods directed against the Carlson and his officers among three Gung Ho and Morale Building nationalist movement. Here also he thousand volunteers from an arm of the picked up an interest in guerrilla war­ Carlson's fame rests upon two small service which was itself composed of vol­ fare. model operations carried out in 1942: unteers, the Marine Corps. an attack on Makin Island and a long The years 19~7-~8 in China-years of march through Guada1canal. Though It should therefore be small cause for the decline and Stalinization of the peas­ these victories were puffed up by the wonder that Carlson achieved excep­ ant movement-were decisive for Carl­ United States press, since they were tional military results with minimal for­ son. During this period he traveled with among the first victories by American ces. Other facts are also interesting. The the Stalinist Eighth Route Army as a troops after a long series of defeats at psychoneurosis rate in his battalion was Marine observer. The results obtained the hands of the Japanese, it was rec­ probably the lowest of any combat unit by the limited democracy granted the ognized that in these victories there was in the United States infantry. Only one troops by the Chinese Stalinists (which an unusual element which helped make man cracked up in the Guadalcanal op­ was, in allY case, greater than that in the Carlson's achievement possible. This eration. Carlson's methods of what he United States armed forces) could nOl was the esprit de corps which he was called "ethical indoctrination" were so but impress Carlson. Edgar Snow and able to establish. It was symbolized in successful that they formed the subject Agnes Smedley, with whom he became the famous philosophy of Gung Ho!­ matter of a Yale study. acquainted in China, also proved of im­ an expression taken from the Chinese portance in conditioning his thinking. and meaning, roughly, cooperation. Carlson's Road to Stalinism He emerged a proponent of the Stalinist Gung Ho was based partly on prac­ Though elements of Carlson's success peasant military movement and an op­ tices developed in classic form in the are obviously due to factors other than ponent of Japan, which the United Red Army of Lenin and Trotsky'S time. his "ethical indoctrination," the role States was at that time appeasing and Says Michael Blankfort, Carlson's Sta· played by his conceptions and their radi­ encouraging. linist biographer, describing the plans cal implications were well, if instinctive­ Following the war he joined the for the unit: " ... there would be no ly, recognized by the officer caste in the American Veterans Committee. In 1947 caste differences in the Raiders. Officers Marine Corps. After Guadalcanal he was he announced his candidacy for state would be leaders by ability and knowl· never again placed in direct charge of senator in California, with the PCA edge and character - and not because men. He was discriminated against in backing him and the Stalinists doing the they held the President's commission. other ways also. pushing from behind. In the last days of They would give no unnecessary orders; Short of engaging in psychoanalytic his life Carlson's thinking took a further they would not order a man to do what speculations, it can be said that Carlson's turn: he expressed a belief in the neces­ they themselves were not prepared to whole life was molded by the military sity of "socialism" -i.e., the Russian sys­ do with him; they would have no spe­ services, which he joined at sixteen and tem. cial mess or barracks or club. And there a half and served almost uninterruptedly The evolution of the bureaucratic­ until his death in 1947. The chief con­ collectivist man was on its way. 1. Tbe HI. YaDkee. by Michael Blank!ort. Little, Brown, Boston, 1947. ditioning factor in his life prior to the JAMES M. FENWICK. THI NIW INTIRNATIONAL • JANUAIY. It. BERNARD SHAW'S ANTI·CAPITALISM Only in recent years have we been able to see what Shaw's Socialism for Super­ Eric Bentley's recent book of mass movement) they had no alterna­ men and Gentlemen really meant. When 011 Bernard Shaw2 frankly declares its tive but to fall back upon mere nostalgia Mussolini came to power, Shaw was one intention to be polemical-to wit, a de­ or reliance on a great and benevolen t of the first European intellectuals to ap­ fense of Shaw as political thinker. leader. plaud the tinsel dictator. For this Shaw Though half of his book analyzes the Shaw had one great intellectual virtue: got the most merciless polemical drub­ plays-and very well, too-the burden of he has been taken in by almost every­ bing of his life. The Italian democrat­ Bentley's argument is political. The re­ thing else but never by capitalism. He one of the last genuine survivors of the sult, to put it bluntly, is pretty sad. succumbed to Nietzscheism, Lamarck­ breed ..:... Gaetano Salvemini went after Since Bentley's argument is largely di­ ism, vegetarianism, imperialism, fascism, Shaw fist and claw and never let go. Sal­ rected against the usual Marxist objec­ Stalinism, anti-vivisection ism, Fabianism vemini exposed for all time Shaw's frig­ tions to Shaw's politics, his own knowl­ and what have you; but he knew how id flirtations with totalitarianism. edge of Marxism is called into question. rotten were the internal social workings Later when Hitler came to power But as soon as Bentley enters the field of of capitalist society and never stopped Shaw behaved in the same way. And political theory he is like a provincial saying so. As a result his magnificently finally he became an apologist for Stalin, let loose in a museum: all he can do is composed pamphlets, polemics and pref­ in whose tyranny he saw a vindication of to remember a few phrases of his home­ aces are full of some of the most elo­ the principle of t.he "efficient leader." town's philistines. Thus we read that quent and effective anti-capitalist agita­ Shaw may have yearned for the Nietz­ Marxism "appeals to pure sentiment, to tion of our times. But that was all. His schean "socialization of the selective that praise of the poor as poor which is best writing was always in terms of par­ breeding of Man" (The Revolutionist's the essence of demagogy." And again, ticularities~ always very concrete and lim­ Handbook)-which Bentley has called, that :Marxism believes in "the adequacy ited. As soon as he entered the field of with other-worldly restraint, "idealistic of 'material and economic factors' to theory, as soon as he essayed generaliza­ racism"-but in practice he could not re­ make revolutions on their own" -what­ tions, he usually made an ass of himself. sist the wretched corporeal supermen of ever revolutions made on "their own" Even in the late nineteenth century fascism and Stalinism. by "factors" may meant Shaw's political physiognomy was ac­ This is the hardest nut for Bentley to This kind of writing calls into ques­ curately described. Despite the fact that crack and the way he does it is really an tion Bentley's entire book; no one can Shaw was infinitely more brilliant than indication of what passes for avant­ claim serious attention when he gives he, the British Marxist, H. M. Hynd­ garde thought these days. Bentley ap­ such a completely ridiculous report of man, in an essay called "The Final Fu­ provingly declares Shaw believed that what Marx believed. This is the kind of tility of Final Utility" destroyed Shaw's liberalism and fascism are rival masks of impressionistic, off-the-cuff politics which economic theories. The British socialist capitalism, and fascism is in 80me ways the a young literary academician can pick writer, Max Beer, described Shaw most better of the two. It sometimes benefitted up by reading literary magazines in the proletariat, it gave bureaucratic status accurately: to functionaries who were formerly casual which ex-leftist intellectuals announce Having no objective guide, no leading employees.... To that extent it prepared their break from Marxism. It is terribly principle to go by, Shaw necessarily arrives the way for genuine socialism. (Myempha­ stale and second-hand. at hero-worship - at the hankering after sis-I. H.) Shaw was never a systematic thinker. the Superman to guide mankind. I have no­ Shaw's praise of fascism, Bentley tri­ First shocked into social awareness by ticed the same mental development in sev­ eral continental critics.... They began with umphantly concludes, was merely a de­ the depression of the early 1880s, he de­ Social Democracy, passed through the Ibsen vice to prod British liberals out of their veloped an eclectic concoction of no­ period, worshipped The Enemy of the Peo­ complacent belief in laissez-faire capi­ tions picked up from a variety of sources. ple, finally becoming adherents of Nietzsche talism. But is it not clear that by this From Marx-whom, incidentally, he ad­ in theory and of Bismark or some other so­ cial-imperialist in practice. sort of argument almost anything can mitted having read only very skimpily-­ be excused or explained away? Shaw borrowed the general social cri­ Super,men and Yahoos What Shaw wanted above all was a tique of capitalist society, while reject­ For Shaw socialism was not a mass society run according to the rational ing the Marxian historical approach, the movement in which the working class prescriptions of Victorian intellectuals theory of class struggle and Marxian eco­ played a leading role; he distrusted the -gentlemen, everyone of them. His nomics. From the marginal-utility econ­ masses of people, the Yahoos as he called hero-the naturally muted British ver­ omists Shaw borrowed his economic them. What he had in common with the sion of the Superman-was the "efficient theories. But the most decisive intellec­ other Fabians, the more routine reform­ civil servant" who would do things tual influences in his life were a number ists, was precisely this distrust of the right. If there is any single political idea of very perceptive but essentially reac­ mass. They, however, did not go along that would be anathema to Shaw it is tionary critics of industrial capitalism: wi~h his notion of superman; as com­ the one contained in Lenin's remark Carlyle, Ruskin and, when he read him placent and cautious reformists they had that every cook must learn to be a cabi­ later on, Nietzsche. These writers savage· enough sense to realize that the leader net minister. Shaw was for minister~ ly attacked all the faults of capitalism, theory was for them a very dangerous ruling and cooks cooking. but since they rejected socialism and the business. That is why they, who never Unlike the great Marxists, Shaw was working class (largely because of their could write such bitter and brilliant at­ fundamentally alien to the democratic antipathy to the masses and to any kind tacks on capitalism as did Shaw, also sel­ and equalitarian spirit that has inspired dom succumbed to the modern totali­ all genuine socialist movements; his 2. Bernard Shaw, by Eric Bentley. New DI­ rections. 1947. 242 pp.• $2.00. tarians so disgracefully as did Shaw. conception of socialism was thoroughly

28 THI NIW 'NTllNATlONAL • JANUAlr. It. ARCHIVES OF THE REVOLUTION

Not By Politics Alone • • • [The following essay is excerpted from power, etc. Now our interests have shifted thorough specialized training for our young the first chapter of the book by Trotsky. far away from that-to the peaceful or­ people, in order to save them from the great Problems of Life, which in some ways is ganization of culture. We should like to defect of the present generation-from su­ one of the most unusual which that great concentrate all our forces on the problems perficial dabbling in generalities-but all and versatile revolutionary leader and of culture and would do it-but for the in­ specialized knowledge and skill must serve thinker wrote. The English version of this ternational relations which force us to fight a common purpose that will be grasped by work, first published in London in Septem­ for our position among the other nations. everyone. ber 1924, is now quite inaccessible for most Yet, apart from foreign politics, and in re­ readers. gard to internal economic relations, the Nothing, therefore, but the problems [The full title of this first chapter is center of our work is the struggle for cul­ of our international position keep us, as "Not by Politics Alone Does Man Thrive." ture. Lenin tells us, from the struggle for cul­ [We here use the original translation by ture. Now these problems, as we shall z. Vengerova but have taken the liberty of I consider it of some interest to quote changing some Briticisms (where American here a passage on "The Epoch of the see presently, are not altogether of a dif­ readers might misinterpret the thought) Struggle for Culture" out of my book, ferent order. Our international position and also a few unidiomatic phrases.-Ed.] Thoughts About the Party: largely depends on the strength of our self-defense-that is to say, on the effi­ • In its practical realization the revolution What is our problem now? seems to have drifted to all sorts of minor ciency of the Red Army-and, in this vi­ What have we to learn in the first place? problems: we must repair bridges. teach tal aspect of our existence as a state, our What should we strive for? We must people to read and to write, try to put down problem consists almost entirely of work the cost of boots in Soviet factories, fight for culture: we must raise the level of learn to work efficiently: accurately, against filth, catch thieves, install electric punctually, economically. We need cuI· power in country districts, etc. Some vulgar­ the army, and teach every single soldier ture in work, culture in life, in the con· minded intellectuals with dislocated brains to read and to write. The men must be ditions of life. After a long preliminary -which makes them imagine they are poets t.aught to read books, to use manuals or philosophers-speak already about the and maps, must acquire habits of tidi­ period of struggle we have succeeded in revolution with an air of condescending su­ overthrowing the rule of the exploiters periority: "Ha, hal" they say, "the revolu­ ness, punctuality and thrift. by armed revolt. No such means exists, tion is learning how to trade. And-ha ha No Short·Cuts however, to create culture all at once. ha I-to sew on buttons." But let the twaddlers babble away. It cannot by some miraculous means The working class must undergo a long The purely practical daily work, provided be all done at once. After the civil war process of self-education, and so must it is constructive from the point of view of and during the transitional period of the peasantry, either along with the Soviet economics and Soviet culture-So­ our work, attempts were made to save workers or following them. Lenin speaks viet retail trade included-is not at all a policy of "small deeds," and does not neces­ the situation by a specially invented about these changed aims of our inter­ sarily bear the impress of pettiness. Small "proletarian doctrine of militarism," ests and efforts in his article on co­ deeds without great issues abound in the but it was quite lacking in any real un­ operation. life of men. but no great issues are. pos­ sible without small achievements. To be derstanding of our actual problems. The ... We must admit [he says] that our more precise, at a time of great issues, same thing happened in regard to the conception of socialism has radically small deeds, being a part of large problems, ambitious plan for creating an artificial changed on one point. All was previously cease to be small. centered for us-by necessity-in the politi­ The problem in Russia at the present mo­ "proletarian culture." All such "quests cal struggle, the revolution, conquest of ment is the constructiveness of the working of the philosopher's stone" combine des­ class. For the first time in history the work­ pair at our deficiency in culture with a ing class is doing constructive work for its faith in miracles. We have, however, no own benefit and on its own plan. This his­ bureaucratic. He was ready to borrow toric plan, though still extremely imperfect reason to despair and, as to miracles and from every non-capitalist theory so long and muddled, will connect all the parts and childish quackeries like "proletarian as it was not committed to a belief in particles of the work, all its ins and outs, culture" or "proletarian militarism," it the independent historical role of the by the unity of a vast creative conception. is high time to give such things up. ",Ve All our separate and minor problems­ masses. That is why Shaw could admire Soviet retail trade included-are parts of must see to the development of culture Stalin but could never appreciate the the general plan which will enable the rul­ within the frame of the dictatorship of democratic idealism which was the un­ ing working class to overcome its economic the proletariat, and this alone can secure derpinning of Marx's and Lenin's life­ weakness and lack of culture. the socialist import of the revolutionary Socialist constructive work is systematic work. To the end Shaw was the petty construction on a vast scale. And amid all conquests. Whoever fails to see this will bourgeois, resentful of his rulers but the ups and downs, amid all the errors and playa reactionary part in the develop­ hating the "Yahoos." retreats. amid all the intricacies of the ment of party thought and party work. That this sort of doctrine should to­ NEP (New Economic Policy), the party When Lenin says that at the present carries on its plan, educates the young gen­ da y find a certain response is not sur· eration in the spirit of it, teaches everyone moment our work is less concerned with prising. Mr. Bentley has done it the to connect their private aims with the com­ politics than with culture, we must be doubtful service of reducing it to its mon problem of all who may call on them quite clear about the terms he uses, so most frank, unadorned and ugly essen­ one day to sew on a Soviet button, and the as not to misinterpret his meaning. In a next-meet death fearlessly under the ban­ tials. ner of communism. certain sense politics always ranks first. IRVING HOWE. We must, and shall, demand serious and Even the advice of Lenin to shift our i n-

THE NEW INTERNATIONAL· JANUARY, 1948 29 terests from politics to culture is a piece on politics in the restricted and special tionary crisis, the harder becomes now of political advice. When the working sense of the word. its socialist constructive work. But on class party of a country comes to decide The proletariat is a powerful social the other side, such is the frame of our that at some given moment the eco­ unity which manifests its force fully dur­ new social structure, marked by the fOUl nomic problems and not the political ing the periods of intense revolutionary characteristics mentioned above.· that should take first place, the decision itseU struggle for the aims of the whole class. all genuine, efficient efforts in the do­ is political. But within this unity we observe a great main of economics and culture beal' It is quite obvious that the word variety of types. Between the obtuse il­ practically the impress of socialism. Un­ "politics" is used here in two different literate village shepherd and the highly der the bourgeois regime the workman, meanings: firstly, in a wide materialistic qualified engine driver there lie a great with no desire or intention on his part. and dialectic sense, as the totality of all many different states of culture and hab­ was continually enriching the bour­ guiding principles, methods, systems its of life. Every class, moreover, every geoisie, and did it all the more, the bet­ which determine collective activities in trade, every group consists of people of ter his work was. In the Soviet state a all domains of public life; and on the different age, different temperaments conscientious and good worker, whether other hand, in a restricted sense, specify­ and with a different past. he cares to do it or not (in case he is not ing a definite part of public activity, di­ But for this variety, the work of the in the party and keeps away from polio rectly concerned with the struggle for Communist Party might have been an tics), achieves soCialist results and in­ power and opposed to economic work, easy one. The example of western Eu­ creases the wealth of the working class. to the struggle for culture, etc. Speaking rope shows, however, how difficult this This is the doing of the October revolu­ of politics as being concentrated eco­ work is in reality. One might say that tion, and the NEP (New Economic Pol­ nomics, Lenin meant politics in the wide the richer the history of a country, and, icy) has not changed anything in this philosophic sense. But when he urged: at the same time, of its working class, respect. "Let us have less politics and more eco­ the greater within it the accumulation Workmen who do not belong to the nomics," he referred to politics in the of memories, traditions, habits, the party, who are deeply devoted to pro­ restricted and special sense. Both ways lar~r the number of old groupings­ duction, to the technical side of their of using the word are sanctioned by tra­ the harder it is to achieve a revolution­ work, are many in Russia-but they are dition and are justified. ary unit of the working class. The Rus­ not altogether "unpolitical," not indif­ The Communist Party is political in sian proletariat is poor in class history ferent to politics. In all the grave and the wide historic or, we may also say, and class traditions. This has undoubt­ difficult moments of the revolution they philosophic sense. The other parties are edly facilitated its revolutionary educa­ were wi th us. The overwhelming ma­ political only in the restricted sense of tion leading up to October. It causes, on jority of them were not frightened by the word. The shifting of the interests the other hand, the difficulty of construc­ October, did not desert, were not trait­ of our party to the struggle for culture tive work after October. The Russian ors. During the civil war many of them does not therefore weaken the political workman-except the very top of the fought on the different fronts, others importance of the party. The party will class-usually lacks the most elementary worked for the army, supplying the mu­ concentrate its activity on the work for habits and notions of culture (in regard nitions. They may be described as "non­ culture and take the leading part in this to tidiness, instruction, punctuality, political," but in the sense that in peace work-this will constitute its historical­ etc.). The western European worker time they care more for their profes­ ly leading, i.e., political, part. Many and possesses these habits. He has acquired sional work or their families than for many more years of socialist work, suc­ them, by a long and slow process, under politics. They all want to be good work­ cessful from within and secure from the bourgeois regime. ers, to get more and more efficient each without, are still needed before the party This explains why in western Europe in his particular job, to rise to a higher could do away with its shell of party the working class-its superior elements, position-partly for the benefit of their structure and dissolve in a socialist com­ at any rate-is so strongly attached to the families, but also for the gratification of munity. This is still so very distant that bourgeois regime with its democracy, their perfectly legitimate professional it is of no use to look so far ahead.... freedom of the capitalist press, and all ambition. Implicitly everyone of them, In the immediate future the party the other blessings. The belated bour­ as I said before, does socialist work with­ must preserve in full its fundamental geois regime in Russia had no time to do out even being aware of it. characteristics: unity of purpose, cen­ any good to the working class, and the But being the Communist Party, we tralization, discipline and, as a result of Russian proletariat broke from the want these workers consciously to con­ it, fitness for fight. But it needs u'nder bourgeoisie all the more easily, and over­ nect their individual productive work the present conditions a very sound eco­ threw the bourgeois regime without re­ with the problems of socialist construc­ nomic base to preserve and to develop gret. But for the very same reason the tion as a whole. The interests of social­ these priceless assets of Communist Party Russian proletariat is only just begin· ism will be better secured by such united spirit. Economic problems, therefore, ning to acquire and to accumulate the activities, and the individual builders of rank first in our politics, and only in sim.plest habits of culture, doing it al­ socialism will get a higher moral satis­ ready in the conditions of a socialist conformity with them does the party faction out of their work. concentrate and distribute its forces and workers' state. educate the young generation. In other History gives nothing free of cost.. LEON TROTSKY. words, politics on a large scale require Having made a reduction on one point '" The "four characteristics," discussed In that all the work of propaganda, distri­ -in politics-it makes us pay the more the section preceding 011r excerpt, are: the character of the Soviet state as a dictator­ hution of forces, teaching and education on another-in culture. The more easily ship of the proletariat; the Red Army as the should be based at present on the prob­ (comparatively, of course) did the Rus­ support of workers' rule: the nationalization of the chief means of production; and the lems of economics and culture, and not sian proletariat pass through the revolu- monopoly of foreign trade.-Ed.

30 THI NEW 'NTfItNATlONAI. • JANUAItY, 1948 give ground before the advance of scientific analysis. (Lundberg, incidentally, fails en­ tirely to weigh the motive8 of the capitalist employers of the professional "social scien­ Books in Review tists.") • • • He stumbles even more in ruling the ques­ tion of "values" out of scientific activity. Fanatacism and Heresy of the Spanish members of the commission Actually, valuation is a basic constituent of proposes to invest the regimental officer the scientific approach; it is a consideration with the power of decision and initiative, THE HERETICS. by HUMphrey Slater. Har­ of what is significant and what is assumed. court. Brace. 1947. $2.75. he is voted down. Perhaps the most brilliant writing in the All his activity is directed toward acquir­ The Heretics is really two independent book is his account of a battle scene in ing, selecting and evaluating new facts novels nbout two different historical periods, which the Loyalists are being slaughtered which will increase his basic knowledge. 1197 to 1212 in France, and 1936 to 1939 on a slope. A political meeting is called by This is expressed by I. Lewy in "Valua­ in Spain. The first novel deals with the fate the Stalinists to discuss the situation. "The tion in Fact-Finding" (Journal of Philo80- of the heretical Albigensians and their Brigade Commissar made a speech in which phy, October 9, 1947). Lewy points out that children; the second is an account of the he did his best to carry out his instructions physical science is founded on the 8election Spanish Civil War. As an artistic achieve­ to link up the immediate issue of the troops' and organization of the facts of reality ment, the latter is the inferior of the two morale with the political question of the which are of value to us. Science is the or­ but has a much greater political interest. fight against Trotskyism." When one of the ganized accumulation of the significant The first section is the work of a brilliant Stalinists states that he must still try to facts in man's struggle to control the phy­ novelist, the second of an equally brilliant explain to his men why they are being sical world. Mere facts about society are journalist. It is an account rather than a slaughtered in an untenable military posi­ meaningless unless they imply an evalua­ narrative, a report rather than a novel. tion, he is denounced for undermining tion of the past and the calculation of the Slater has, unfortunately, not imaginative­ morale and giving objective support to fas­ possibilities of the future. ly worked through his Spanish material. cism. The meeting ends with a unanimous To quote Lewy: "It is obvious that fact­ The link between these disparate sections vote of confidence in the leadership and a finding boards or purely descriptive science is that they both deal with fanaticism and unanimous condemnation of the "Trotsky­ may become a weapon in the hands of those its consequences. Slater states of a Stalinist ist-fascist" agents of the enemy. who defend the status quo or vested inter­ that .his ."devout ruthlessness about his pol­ Slater is a writer of experience, under­ ests or prejudices· of all sorts." But the icy, which he regarded as something mys­ standing and power. He has the novelist's class conflict in society does not permit a tically superior to real individuals, and to gift, and as soon as he digests his experi­ common evaluative foundation for social which they should be utterly subordinate ence, he will write finer novels than The science, and only the interests of the work­ was ... little different from the fanaticism Heretics. But The Heretics is more than a ing class point to the abolition of that class of the old ecclesiastical Inquisition." The promise; it is an achievement. conflict. That is why it is possible to adopt era of Innocent III and the era of Stalin RICHARD STOKER. are both characterized by "campaigns, pur­ a truly scientific attitude toward social phe­ ges, confessions, executions, denunciations, nomena only by projecting oneself into the point of view of the working-class struggle betrayals. " Is Social Science Possible? Fanaticism is, I take it, adherence to a be­ for a classless society. lief no matter what. It submits to no tests. CAN SCIENCE SAYE US? by George A. Thus Marxism is as much of a broad sci­ If a Stalinist, ignorant of the latest Soviet Lundberg. LongMans, Green, 1947; $1.75. ence of society as we can expect today. It will become a more exact, a more "true," edict, derides as false the report that This is one of many books twelve-year-old Russian children are made science as we progress toward socialism and which have appeared in recent months dis­ a society without class divisions. Bubject to the death penalty, he will not, cussing science from the bourgeois point when the report is proved true, modify his WALTER GREY. belief in the justice of the Soviet order. He of view. It is generally more progressive will state that the edict only proves the ad­ than most of them, in pleading for the ex­ vanced character of the regime, because its tension of the scientific method to wider Marxist Missionary educational system converts twelve-year­ fields. Lundberg separates himself from the "scientific" irrationalists, like Eddington, JOSEPH WEYDEMEYER, by Karl Obermann. old children into political adults. International Publishers, New Yorle. 1947. I quite agree with Slater on the close Compton and Millikan, who deny that man's similarity between Innocent III and Stalin. social ills are susceptible to scientific analy­ With the murder of Trotsky the last rep­ But I cannot accept the problem of fanati­ sis. But while Lundberg points out that the resentative of the great revolutionists of cism as only a moral one. It is a social and early development of the sciences was op­ the past was cut down. The passage of time cultural problem as well. Why is fanaticism posed by those with vested interests in ig­ serves only to bring their greatness into more virulent in some epochs than in others? norance and superstition, he does not un­ sharper focus. Possessors of the best in The answer must be sought in the social, derstand that the same stuation is faced by western thought as synthesized with Marx­ political and economic tensions of the re­ the social sciences today. ism, infused with an energy and conviction spective epochs. Stalinism is a horrible per­ Despite his limitation, he makes a contri­ rare in Europe since the French Revolution, version, but what are the inadequacies of a bution in emphasizing that there is no fun­ these personalities represented the new rev­ capitalist system that make inhabitants of damental difference, such as precludes the olutionary vanguard. They were the first the system into Stalinists? What are the application of intellgence and scientific political scientists, in the literal sense of conditions in Russia that permit this rude method to both, between the external physi­ the term. They were the first to prepare the fanaticism? These are the questions that cal world and the social world. He takes up socialist transformation of society through Slater must face and has not. the objection that "the investigator is in­ an understanding of its laws of motion. And yet, this is a valuable hook. Its anti­ side instead of outside his material," with Capitalism in its headlong decline in­ Stalinism is not second-hand but is based its implication that unbiased observation duces distortion in all concepts--even those on Slater's Spanish experience. Slater un­ and interpretation are impossible in social held by the revolutionary vanguard. At a derstands the role of the Stalinists in the science. This difficulty, however, is more or time when the Marxist cadre is small and Spanish Civil War. Isolated episodes in the less present in all science and can be con­ subject to tremendous social and ideological book are brilliant. trolled only by the use of the proper tech­ pressures, it is instructive to review the He is particularly effective in presenting niques peculiar to the given science. lives of those individuals, great and clo~e the Russian policy through the deliberations Another alleged obstacle is the "motives" to great, who can be placed under the head­ of the Operational Policy Commission. The involved in social phenomena and supposed­ ing: The Revolutionary Man. Russians propose as their thesis on the ly beyond the ken 0 1 Jcience. But already In 1842 Joseph Weydemeyer was a twen­ duties of the regimental officer that he and despite its yout." the science of psy­ ty - four - year - old artillery lieutenant at­ "obey, know and report," and mechanically chology has been forcing "motives" to lose tached to the garrison at Minden, Westphn­ repeat each other's arguments. When one many of their mysterious aspects and to lia, when he fell under the influence of the

TH' N'W 'NT'RNAT'ONAl. • JANUARY, 194. 31 Rheinische Zeitung. He soon became a Intervening constantly in national matters of interest to the working class, he wrote Marxist, crowding his life with the most SUBSCRIBE NOW varied activity until his death in St. Louis extensively· on the tariff and slavery ques­ in 1866. tions, participated in the opposition to the His activity in the 1848 events in Europe Kanslls-N ebraska bill organized workers' led to his leaving for the United States in militia for defense against the Know-N oth­ LABOR ACTION 1851. He plunged immediately into the life ings, aided in the election of Lincoln, and of the German emigre groups. Almost im­ during the Civil War served as the colonel $1.00 a Year 50 Cents Six Mos. mediately he founded Die Revolution of a Missouri infantry regiment. (Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire was first Of particular interest in this biography published in it), the first of a long series (it is one of the few products of current LABOR ACTION of papers with which Weydemeyer was con­ Stalinist scholarship possessing value) is nected. the portrayal of the efforts of Weydemeyer 4, Court Square He continually sought to effect a rap­ -as early as 1851 !-to introduce Marxism Long Island City 1, N. Y. prochement between the more advanced into the American scene. This thorny prob­ German labor movement in the United lem is still with us. Name ______--- States and the English-speaking workers. JAMES M. FENWICK Address ___ . ______.______

City .______.______.______------_ Correspondence ••• Zone ______State ______.______. ______

was in Poland neither a bourgeois nor pro­ Rudzienski Replies to Oale letarian revolution," but "that a democratic [Our contributor Rudzienski here replies socialist revolution had been suppressed, By V. I. LENIN: to the letter by Liston Oak which appeared drowned in blood by the Red Army and the in the September issue. The original article NKVD and the Polish Communist Quis­ Letters from Afar ...... 20c by Rudzienski was printed in the August lings." I desire only to add that by the "dem­ issue .. -Ed.] ocratic socialist revolution" I understand On the Eve of October ...... 20e the socialist revolution, the only revolution • possible now. There is no doubt that the Paris Commune ..... 25c To THE EDITOR: socialist revolution will be the most demo­ Tasks of the Proletariat .. 20e Liston Oak feels offended by the term cratic of all revolutions; the definition of "innocent" which I used in connection with the revolution as "socialist" distinguishes The Proletarian Revolution 35c it from the bourgeois revolution and em­ his comparison between the present situa­ The Young Generation 20e tion in Poland and Russia under Kerensky. phasizes its different class content in ac­ May I say that the adjective "innocent" was cordance with Marxist theory. Teachings of K.rl Marx 25c used casually in the text without the inten­ But like a vulgar bourgeois and not a tion of offending anyone. The article origi­ socialist, the ill-tempered Liston Oak con­ War and the 2nd International 25c fuses all that was previously clarified, with nally bore the title "The Errors of Liston War and the Workers 15c Oak," which the editor of THE NEW INTER­ one small phrase which follows the previous NATIONAL later changed to read "A Social quotation: "as it was in Russia by the Bol­ Democratic 'Innocent' Abroad." I did not sheviks, under Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin." Prices include cost of postage and use the term "innocent" in any derogatory For my part it is not a question of adjec­ handling sense, since I prefer "innocent" people to tives or of finding stains on the radiant sun rogues and sharpsters. of Liston Oak's socialist theory, but of ex­ All orders must be prepaid My article was dedicated to explaining plaining the different content of the bour­ Liston Oak's errors and not to censuring geois and proletarian revolution. It is hard­ him. With Oak's statement that "my casual ly a question of a contradiction between the LABOR ACTION BOOK SERVICE adjectives "socialist" and "democratic." The comparison between the Poland of 1945-47 4 COURT SQUARE and the Russia of Kerensky and Lenin was 'revolution of our times is destined to realize not a brilliant one," the question was almost a combination of different tasks in the Long Island City 1. N. Y. completely cleared up because this was the course of the same historic process. fundamental difference between us. Liston Oak admits his er~or in compar­ However, angered by the unfortunate ad­ ing the Warsaw government with the Ker­ a continuation of the social revolution which jective "innocent" (which the editor over­ ensky government; even more, he states was led by Lenin and Trotsky.. emphasized, contrary to my intentions), that there was no social revolution in Po­ The only salvation from totalitarian bar­ Liston Oak draws the noose tight and, like land. And then, contrary to all the logic of barism, which in its most elemental form a bourgeois and not a socialist, says, "Rud­ scientific discussion, he lowers the level of is a product of decomposing capitalism or zienski's distortion of my meaning is a typ­ discussion by insinuating that I am guilty the defeated revolution, is the socialist rev­ ical piece of Bolshevik polemical hypocri­ of "Bolshevik hypocrisy." Going even fur­ olution, the only revolution pOBsible in our sy." ther he puts Lenin and Trotsky on the times. Thi8 revolution will not abolish de­ Why the need to fire this Big Bertha, same level with Stalin and the ... Commu­ mocracy but realize it completely for the since Oak himself confesses his comparison nist Quislings of Warsaw. first time in history, abolishing the system was not exactly a happy one? I wished only Since the level of the discussion has thus of capitalist monopoly and the totalitarian to explain to the readers that the present been lowered, we must explain elementary monopoly of the Stalinist bureaucrctC1/. Warsaw government bears no similarity to truths. All the revolutions in history have If Liston Oak wishes to save our .clvDi­ Kerensky's regime, because the latter was been followed by periods of reaction. Iso­ zation or formal bourgeois democracy, he created during a revolution and was a dem­ lated from the international proletariat, the will have to unite with us whether he does ocratic government; the Stalinist govern­ Russian Revolution was destroyed by Sta­ or does not hate Lenin and Trotsky, or else ment was imported on the bayonets of an lin, who is not the continuator of Lenin and pass into the ranks of the bourgeois-Stalin­ invasion, is anti - democratic, anti - socialist Trotsky's work but its most abject and infa­ ist counter-revolution. The attempt to evade and counter-revolutionary. Had Liston Oak mous grave-digger. Socialism is a maximum a theoretical position with insults or fits of accepted just this, the discussion would and superior stage of social democracy. The ill temper will not save him from having to have been cleared up. totalitarian autocracy of Stalin is_ a phe­ choose between these alternatives. I agree with the clarification that "there nomenon of the counter-revolution 'and not A. RUDZIENSKI. THE NEW INTERNATIONAL. JANUARY, 1948