March, 1941 Ou r • n erna lona

The Court-Martial System Of the U. S. Army By Michael Cort

The End of French Democracy By Terence Phelan

After the Lend-Lease Law ...... The Editors On the United Front ...... Leon Trotsky Hitler's "New Order" ....., .. William Simmons Franco's Dilemma ...... Grandizo Munis The War Deal's Economics. William F. Warde

======TW,enty Cen" have not got any F. I. since then. I shall get money from the Manager's. Column FOURTH INTERNATIONAL United States in February and I PubUshed by the Fourth InternationaZ Publishing Association if you will send me the F. I. for October and November I Vo1ume II March 1941 No.3 (Whole No. 10) A little more than a month will remit payment then." We 116 Unlver8ity Place, New York. N. Y. Te1ep1lone: Akonquln ,"~7. complied with his request and has gone by since the launching Subscription rates: '2.00 per "&r: bundl... 14c for Ii cop" and up. of the subscription drive, run Canada and Forelan: f2.150 per "&1"; bUlld1,. 160 for IS oopl .. and UP. surely enough his remittance Entered as 8&COnd-cla.as ma.tter Ka.y 20. ID40. at the Potlt oflflce at NeW' came through from friends in jointly by FOURTH INTERNA­ York. N. Y .• under the Act of Kardl a. 187D. Boston this week. TIONAL and the MILITANT. EdUonGI Bocwd: In a steady stream, subscrip­ JAMES P. CANNON JOSEPH HANSEN A second London letter comes tions of all denominations-very ALBERT GOLDMAN FELIX MORROW from one of our correspondents w]LUAlo{ 11'. WARDE many of them for a much longer B,,",,-__ JlGflGllfIf': and reads in part: "We have period than the two months of­ LYDIA BEIDEL received your letter of 14th De­ fered in the special combination cember. It has taken nearly two -have been flowing into the TABLE OF CONTENTS months! We certainly should business office from all parts of have kept you regularly inform­ the country. To the time of this After the Lease-Lend Law ...... By The Editors 67 ed of developments over here. writing, the total has just top­ The Court-Martial System in the Our earlier letters to friends in ped 500 subscriptions to the two U. S. Army ...... By Michael Cort 71 New York never seemed to ar­ pubUca tions. Franco's Dilemma ...... By Grandi{o Munis 69 rive, so we rather gave up try­ ing . . • Trade union member­ As might be expected, the China and the Russian Revolution By Leon Trotsky 75 ship is steadily increasing and heavy results are coming from Hitler's "New Order" ...... By William F. Simmons 76 has now reached over six mil­ the industrial areas in which a lion - a good sign for the fu­ concerted, long-term mass distri­ The End of French Democracy .. By Terence Phelan 79 ture. But political life is at a bution of our press has been car­ The War Deal's Economics .. By William F. Warde 90 very low level; partly because ried on. But the steadiness with FROM THE ARSENAL OF MARXISM the workers as a whole accept which new subscribers are crop­ The Tactics of the United Front .. By Leon Trotsky 83 the was as an unpleasant neces­ ping up in the agricultural sity, but nevertheless a neces­ towns of the South and West The Pacific War Front ...... By George Stern 93 sity; because so many are work­ is something to cause amaze­ ing long hours or are engaged ment. Here we have concrete MANAGER'S COLUMN Inside Front COfJer ca;fIIj;w 261 in such occupations as fire­ evidence of the persistence with watching or ARP outside work­ which the ideas of socialism ing hours; and partly because penetrate by every sort of means sub-raising social; but Boston, sharper relief by the schqcking viewing such methods with dis­ state of things with some others. It is the big centers that have into all parts of our diverse pop­ suffered most from the blitz and ulation and find everywhere an dain, has vowed to beat out her We hope something will shock rival in the West "the hard them into a realization that, there practically nothing goes enthusiastic response and a de­ on in the evenings. mand for a steady supply of our way"-by going door-to-door. At even if a debt is so old it has "We can be optimistic for the material. the present writing, Boston's become a local tradition, it is Spartan determination has her still a scandal and a pain in the future, but work is slow and The Minnesota cities have in the lead as against Chicago, neck of the business office of painful at the moment. Our again run away from the rest Newark and Detroit. the magazine. If we could look ranks have been seriously thin­ of the field in this subscription in several directions at one time, ned by the calls of the armed activity. The comrades in Min­ we are confident that our burn­ forres, but we are carrying on neapolis and St. Paul have tied * * * ing stare would be felt in the as well as we can. the record ot the rest of the On the heels of the phenomen­ backs of the following sections: "We would very much appre­ country combined. They have al success of the subs.cription Akron, Baltimore, Boston, Cleve­ ciate hearing from yOU from been able to do this not only campaign have come, as one land, Flint, Indianapolis, Los time to time. We receive liter­ because their whole history of would expect, a definite improve­ Angeles, Newark, New Haven, ature from you, though erratic­ class-struggle activity in the la­ ment in the distribution of the New Orleans, Philadelphia, San ally and after long delay. But bor movement is bearing its lo­ magazine as well as an increase Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, that cannot be helped. Best gical and inevitable fruit but in remittances to the business Texas an

d FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

VOLUME 2 MARCH 1941 NUMBER 3 After the Lease-Lend Law By THE EDITORS For years we warned the American workers of the im­ thus avoid a war with Germany for the time being. They minence of war, of its inevitability if the capitalist class was would like to see Britain win, but its defeat, they feel, is not permitted to remain in power. The lend-lease law is an enorm­ an unmixed evil: that defeat would immediately throw Can-. ous step toward total participation in the war. But--every ada, Australia and other sections of the British empire into worker must understand this-the lend-lease law has not yet the clutches of American imperialism. plunged us into the war. I t is quite natural that this position should be champ­ Between the lend-lease law and complete participation in ioned by the RepUblican Party, which has its main strength the war there is a gap, ever narrowing but still a gap which in those sections of the country farthest removed from the it is extremely important to understand. The Gallup polls Atlantic seaboard. Not the least of the motivations of the continue to show that large sections of the population which Republican politicians is that they are an opposition party supported the enactment of the lend-lease law remain op­ anxious to find an issue upon which they can regain control of posed to actual warfare. There will be many a sleepless night the government. for the rulers of this country before they risk the plunge. The The "anti-war" arguments of this group merit nothing temper of the organized labor movement does not enable but contempt from the workers. Class-conscious workers can Roosevelt and \Vall Street to go confidently to war. scarcely get excited over the "isolationist" idea that Roose­ The anti-war sentiments of the popUlation and the at­ velt is about to strip "our" defenses for the sake of helping titude of the labor movement are not the sole determinants Great Britain. The ones who use that argument show that of this situation. American imperialism would like now to they differ with Roosevelt only on the question of how best use the tactics that Great Britain used when it was the dom·· to defend American imperialism. inant power in the world-supply the money and armaments When the lend-lease bill was passed, one after another of and let other countries do the actual fighting. Undoubtedly the "isolationist" leaders arose to swear fealty to Roosevelt Roosevelt and those he represents would like to attain their in executing the law. \Vhere differences ,are deep-going, there objective of defeating Hitler without sending troops and even, can be no such round of camaraderie and handshaking as if possible, without having the navy participate in the con­ "isolationists" and interventionists joined in. And if the in­ flict. They would prefer to have others do the fighting and terventionist arguments did not convince these "isolationists" dying. Likewise the ever-deepening conflict in the Pacific, then the development of the war has done so for many. which George Stern describes in an article in this issue, may For, the fact is, if you accept the imperialist premises hold off for a time. A short time-but that means so much which the "isolationists" and interventionists both agree to, more time in which to organize the American proletariat for then the interventionists have logic on their side. A victorious the tasks that lie ahead. Nazi Germany would menace the interests of American im­ The foregoing considerations dictate a precise under­ perialism throughout the world. Europe cannot solve, even standing of the debate over the lend-lease bill. Of course no temporarily, the needs of German imperialism. It requires fundamental principles separated the debaters. They all immediately the raw materials and natural resources of Asia, agreed on the principle of helping Great Britain and thus Africa, South America, it must"reach out for them-and col­ protecting the interests of American imperialism. The Ame­ lide head-on with American imperialism. rican capitalists prefer the victory of British imperialism be­ As this perspective becomes ever clearer, the ranks of the cause the British is the weaker and the less dynamic of the "isolationists" thin away rapidly. two imperialist camps and consequently represents less-in But the struggle against the entry of America into the fact, no-danger to the interests of American imperialism. A war never Jepended on these people anyway. Unanimity in victory of British imperialism means, in reality, a victory for Congress does not change the real relation of forces outside American imperialism, for the British empire in the course the artificial and distorted atmosphere of Washington. Tens of this war is certain to come more and more under the dom­ of millions still do not want entry into the war; and their ination of the United States. ability to fight against entry is objectively favored by the Hence there is no difference within the ruling class on plans of American imperialism, which seeks to delay if pos'­ whether to help toward a British victory. The difference arises sible total American involvement. on the question, to what extent the United States should go to The next phase of the struggle against American entry assure a British victory. A section of the capitalist class, main­ into the war can be organized against the use of the navy to ly represented by the mid-western Republican leaders, pre­ convoy war material to Britain. Propaganda to prepare the fers a victory for Britain but are not prepared to go the limit people to accept convoys began even before passage of the to prevent a German victory. lend-lease law; some of it was astonishingly brazen, for ex­ These "isolationists"-the name is really a fraud-are ample, the speech of Commander Edward Ellsberg, U.S.N. R., confident they can thwart Hitler's attempt at achieving heg­ at the Overseas Press Club on March 1st. "We are in the war emony in South America. They believe they can enter into now," he insisted. "I have spoken to the government, and I some arrangement with the Nazis over other questions and know that we will be doing this convoying before long. We do Page 68 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941 not' have to declare war now anymore than we did when we legislation compelling a 40-days Hcooling off" period and a shelled Vera Cruz in 1914. At that time the Navy had orders 60 per cent pro-strike vote of all employes (both union and to accomplish an objective. It did so even though it meant non-union) before a strike can be legally called, and so on. killing some Mexicans." The IIsofts" thereupon "save" labor by persuading the "hards" Following his pattern (and Hitler's) of whittling down to agree to the more modest proposal of a special mediation opposition by accomplishing an objective in several stages, board for the war industries. By the time this appears, Roose­ Roosevelt may begin with IIpartial" convoys: U.S. destroyers velt will probably have issued an executive order setting up and subchasers will lIonly" accompany freighters across the such a board. Atlantic to the Azores, and will not proceed into the Hwar We can predict with certainty that, whether this board zone" around the British isles. Needless to say, a sea battle is or is not legally endowed with compulsory powers, it will between the U. S. warships and German submarines can take crack down on the unions. Roosevelt will follow the silk-glove place a hundred miles out of New York just about as well as method as long as it gets results. But the rising cost of living, it could twenty miles off Liverpool. But Roosevelt's man­ the legitimate anger of the workers at the contrast between euver will serve its purpose: tens of millions of American the restrictions placed on them and the profiteering of the workers and their families, who don't want American entry bosses, and the workers' consequent militancy in protecting in the war but who want to see Hitler destroyed, will half-be­ their interests, will in the end drive Roosevelt to an open lievingly accept IIpartial" convoys as the way to achieve both clash with the trade union movement. The silk-glove method their desires. depends on the effectiveness of Roosevelt's collaborators in Under these conditions, to fight against the use of convoys the unions, the top bureaucrats. They will, however, prove will be decidedly going against the stream. But the fight must to be a weak reed for Roosevelt to lean upon. Already im­ be made. Many a worker who will now brush our arguments portant strikes have taken place despite the top leadership. In aside, will find them haunting his thoughts more and more addition the CIO leadership has not, and is unlikely to secure, often in the next period. the kind of grip on the new CIO unions-auto and aircraft, We must ask such workers: "You want to see Hitler de­ steel, electrical manufacturing, rubber, etcetera-that could stroyed, you think that the Roosevelt government can be the make such collaboration with Roosevelt possible. It is more instrumentality for that, yet you oppose entry into the war. likely that a section of the CIO leadership will go part of the \Vhy? I f you seriously believe what you say you do, you way along the road with the militant workers. Roosevelt will should be demanding entry into the war. Why should you find himself with no other weapons than naked governmental and those like you be sheltered from the war's consequences, jf action against the unions. you believe that Britain is fighting your battle? You are being Whatever time we have before total war envelopes the disgustingly selfish." United States must be utilized to the full to strengthen the Am I really selfish? such a worker will ask himself. He workers' organizations, to prepare the workers to resist the knows that in other matters he has demonstrated his ability to tremendous pressure that the government and its agents in the merge his personal interests in the greater good. He has risked labor movement will exert to prevent the workers from con­ bones, perhaps his life, on picket lines. Why, then, is he un­ tinuing their struggles for better conditions. Roosevelt's med­ willing to do as much in the "war for democracy"? If he iation board and every other act of the government that tends thinks his way through he will find that, at the bottom of this to restrict any of the workers' rights, must be fought. We "selfishness" lies skepticism concerning the real nature of this must systematically expose the hypocrisy of every appeal to "war for democracy." the workers to cease their militant activities as a patriotic * * * duty to the country. We shall have one major aid in this task: That skepticism will grow under the impact of the com- the huge profits of the war industries will be an ever-galvaniz­ ing clashes between the workers on the one hand, and the ing proof that the bosses sacrifice nothing while the workers employers and their government on the other. are asked to sacrifice everything. It will not be difficult to demonstrate that excess profits taxes and other legislation "to Roosevelt's Labor Strategy end profiteering" will be but fig-leafs to cover the continuing In the period of peace, the American capitalists could af­ profiteering of the bosses. Government acts to Hfreeze" prices ford to permit Roosevelt to experiment with social legislation. of consumers' goods will be shown to be empty gestures; the The American ruling class was rich enough to tolerate the worker's wife will know that every day she goes to market. "social appeasement" methods of Roosevelt, rich enough to All these goads will impel the worker on the road of struggle. afford, grumblingly, the luxury of democracy. In the face of a rising labor movemeIl:t the government's Altogether different is the situation now, when the cap­ strategy will undoubtedly include court prosecutions of var­ italists are preparing for a show-down with German imperial­ ious kinds against the weaker links in the labor movement. ism. Rights the workers exercised in times of peace now be­ Each and every prosecution must be fought off by a united come intolerable to the ruling class. labor movement. The imprisonment of Earl Browder and the Especially is this so since the American workers do not attempt to deport Harry Bridges are but the first moves of seem to be swayed in the least by appeals to patriotism. They this kind. We must help all the workers to understand that are now acting as they have always done in periods of econ­ such attacks against one section of the labor movement can omic upswing, when strikes become the order of the day. That be nothing but the beginning of attacks against the whole the present economic upswing is due to war preparations, has labor movement. The workers must realize that they should not caused the workers to break this invariable rule. Withouf defend a Browder and a Bridges for the same reasons that much theory, but hard-headed about what they want, the they defend bureaucrats like Hutcheson of the Carpenters and workers are continuing their class struggle. Joseph Ryan of the Longshoremen. In attempting to stifle these struggles, there is a nice We shall never tire of repeating that the labor movement division of labor between the "softs" and IIhards." Congress­ must deal with those inside the movement who are enemies men Smith and Vinson introduce bills to legislate the un"ion of working class progress-the labor fakers, the racketeers, the shop out of existence in war industries, Knudsen proposes Stalinists and all other servants of the capitalist class inside March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 69 the unions. Only labor can clean the ranks of labor. The simple but decisive ideas. First, in this epoch of total war "help" of. the government always turns out to be a dagger­ the workers must become adept in the military arts. Second, thrust agamst the workers. Against the capitalist class and its ~he~ must do so under the direction of their own class organ­ government, we must defend the Browders, as well as the IzatIOns. Hutchesons. Otherwise we give the ruling class an enterincr All those in the labor movement, like the Norman wedge with which to disrupt the labor movement. 0 Thomas group and the Stalinists, whose "anti-war" agita­ From E~~nomic to Political Struggle tion is essentially pacifist, are committing a terrible crime The mIlItancy of the workers at the present time must against the workers who listen to them. They are telling these be assessed for what it is and nothing more. They are not workers to counterpose ballots to bullets, social reform to h.ostile to the war program of the Roosevelt government. They armed struggle, peace to war. Every word is false. What these SImply want to take advantage of the spurt in industry to im­ workers must learn, and transmit to the great mass of the workers, is that they cannot, they dare not, surrender to their prove th~ir .conditions. In purs~ing this aim they are evincing enemies the monopoly of knowledge of military means. Every­ ~ fi~, mdIfference to the cnes that they are endangering theIr country. But they are by no means indifferent to the thing in this epoch of war will be decided arms in hand. He issues of the war. On the contrary, they very much want to who teaches anything else to the workers is helping to deliver them defenseless to their class enemies. As Lenin said in 1916: see H i~ler be~ten,and for the present, they see no other way to achIeve thIS except by Roosevelt's program. "An oppressed class which does not strive to gain a knowledge A realistic and precise understanding of this attitude of of arms, to become expert in arms, to possess arms, deserves nothing else than to be treated as a slave." the wor~ers provides the basis for a bridge from their present economIC struggles to real political struggles against the im­ :rhis military knowledge must become the property of perialist war. , the workers as a class. That is not achieved by becoming We must tell the workers plainly that it is not enough soldiers in the armies of capitalism. The unorganized work­ to fight for better conditions in the factories. We must tell ers, wearing the uniform of their masters, are in that situation them that whatever better conditions they will win will, in tools of their masters, unable to determine what they should learn, how they should learn it, and what they should use that ~~le end, be wip.ed out by the further development of the war, If they do nothmg else except fight for these better conditions. hnowledge for. Let the drafted worker go, since he has no Far from telling the workers to be indifferent to the war, choice today, and let him learn as weIl as he can, so that he we must insist that the greatest of all problems confronting can serve his class so much the better afterward; but that is them is the war. This is not our war; it is not a war for dem­ not the kind of military training we favor. We want military ocracy against fascism; it is a war between imperialist rivals. training of the class. We want our class 'separated from the But we cannot stop with this thought, important though it is. capitalist class in military training as in everything else. That We cannot if for no other reason than that the workers will is why we demand military training of workers, financed by not listen to us if we stop there. They want to see Hitler de­ the government, under control of the trade unions. That is stroyed, and so do we. \Ve must make central in the thoughts why we demand the establishment of special officers' training of the workers this single thought: this war must be turned in­ camps, financed by the government and controlled by the to a war for real workers' democracy and that can be done trade unions, to train workers to become officers. only if the workers take over control of the government. A class program of military training-that is our posi­ A fighting, 'positive attitude is what the situation de­ tive approach to the workers today. It is the first answer to mands. And We have, it, in our party's military' policy. the question: how to destroy fascism, to really destroy it, not Our military policy impresses upon the workers two only in Germany and Italy, but here too. Franco's Dilemma By GRANDIZO MUNIS In a preceding article on Spain,* written before the capitu­ perhaps by dragging Spain into the war or allowing the pas­ lation of France, we maintained that Franco would be com­ sage of German troops. English naval superiority wiIl be pelled to restrain his pro-German sympathies and pursue a maintained in the Mediterranean so long as Britain controls foreign policy commercially favorable to the democracies. the key to the Straits, Gibraltar. The latter is practically in­ Hitler's victory over France, which gave him a zone of con­ vulnerable except from Spain and her Moroccan protectorate., tact with Spain on the Pyrenees frontier has altered matters There are two reasons why Hitler has not yet made use of somewhat but, contradictory as it may appear, it has exces­ Spanish terrain and Franco's servility to destroy Gibraltar. sively injured Franco, still further compromising the stability He expected to conquer England spectacularly by means of a of his regime. The Caudillo must bitterly curse fate for the frontal attack and, secondly, Franco's internal security is so little resistance put up by France, because the constant danger fragile that to force him into the war could provoke an erup­ of a Nazi invasion on the northern frontier limits the liberty tion. The first of these reasons becomes less and less valid; of his foreign policy. I f before he was a friend and debtor to the second, on the contrary, gains strength daily. Hitler, today hoe is virtually his prisoner. Gradually, or by force, and whenever the Fuehrer desires, his Spanish imita­ Mass Hatred of Franco tion will have to cede the use of the Mediterranean and At­ Franco governs in the midst of a gigantic passive resist­ lantic ports (Mahon, Cartagena, Ferrol, Cadiz, Melilla) and ance by the workers and peasants. A great part of the petty give him the facilities to try to destroy the Rock of Gibraltar; and some circles of the big bourgeoisie, as weIl as numerous • "Spain: One Year Mter Franco's Victory," in the August, officers, are also to some degree or other hostile to him, but 1940 Fourth International. the fear of revolutionary consequences which, might folloW Page 70 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941 Franco's fall, restrains them from struggling against the lat­ special donations to the Falange Espanola and delivers speech­ ter and the Falanga Espanola. es praising its patriotism. A commercial accord which as far as The majority of the population in the Iberian peninsula, we know here has not actually been put into effect has been mor~ so than even among the Spanish emigration, live under signed between England and Spain. the Impression that there will soon be a change in regime. A letter recently received from a city of Old Castille relates: Anglo-America's Two-Way Prospective In spite of their diplomatic acrobatics to ingratiate them­ "Situation cloudy; overcast;, tempest expected." Another from selves into the good graces of the dictator, the Anglo-American Madrid written by one of those individuals who received the bourgeoisie regards with distrust his secret commitments to conquerer with palm leaves, mournfully says: "Here nobody the Axis. As a warning, the United States has made felt the knows from where the shot will come, but the whole world believes that you will return soon (the refugees); I hope that weight of its economic pressure by refusing to grant a loan to Franco. But in order not to irritate Franco too much, you have not included me in your blacklist." Still further Washington has at the same time allowed Argentina to give strengthening this report illustrating the general aversion to fascism, a fugitive who recently arrived in Mexico from Bar­ him a credit of 100 million pesos for the purchase of wheat. For her part, England regulates commercial relations with celona refers to what happened during a military parade or­ ganized in Barcelona to commemorate the taking of the city restrictions and measures of maritime inspection which would by the fascist troops. Many regiments and uniformed Falang­ permit England to reduce Spanish imports to virtually noth­ ist companies were parading. At the end of the line marched ing as soon as it would be in England's interest to do so. a brigade of workers made up, as all of them are, of Loyalist Politically, England pursues the same duality. On the one ex-militiamen compelled to do forced labor. The outburst of hand, soft words of endearment for the Falange Espanola, on cheers were so general and prolonged when the latter p'assed the other, threats of a monarchist restoration. During the past by that the authorities had to remove them from the parade. few months, the English press defended the Spanish fascist These anecdotes are confirmed by the Falangist press. Not a party, as if it were its own, calling it a champion of peace week passes without it threatening the dissatisfied and rumor­ and Spanish greatness. At the same time it encouraged the mongers, admitting that the very ranks of the Falange Es­ monarchical secret center, holding it in readiness for action. panola are plagued with "reds and concealed enemies of the A few weeks ago there appeared in Mexico the Marquis of fatherland." The political joke, a weapon which the Spanish Castellano, representing, it appears, Alfonso and some gen­ people have used with merriment and well-aimed irony, blos­ erals who favor a Bourbon restoration. A secret accord, known soms .again. All Spain is overflowing with an endless stream as the "pact of XochimiIco," was drawn up after conversa­ of stories against the regime and its men. Recalling Primo de tions with refugee republican and socialist leaders. I t is in­ Rivera whose fall was preceded by a wave of laughter, the dubitable that without the approval of England none of these Falangist press demands especially strong legislation against gentlemen would dare utter the word restoration. I t is a jokes. The Spanish people do not eat but they laugh their fill political trick for England with which to attract Franco into at their rulers; within a short time they will be forbidden to her orbit. But England, as well as the United States, knows laugh. very well that Franco cannot march toward their camp be­ The growing instability of Franco grows with the war. yond the point allowed by Hitler, unless the former decides Hitler and Mussolini cannot give him anything; they can take to accept British aid and run the risk of confronting Hitler away much. The problem of provisions, far from being re­ with arms. It is interesting t.o point out in this respect a book solved, is aggravated daily. If Hitler were not on the frontier recently published in England: "A Key to Victory: Spain," like a gendarme, Franco would be able to pursue a relatively by Charles Duff. The author, a Fabian no doubt, pleads for free foreign policy which would permit him to obtain pro­ democratic intervention in Spain, to be launched from visions from the British Empire, the United States and the Portugal. countries where Wall Street gives orders. The universal dis­ For Franco (as well as the monarchy, if intervention will content arises precisely from the fact that not 'even the priv­ attempt to restore it), this remedy will be worse than the dis­ ileged classes for whom Franco rebelled are satisfied. They ease. But if from one angle or another its consummation will eliminated the "Marxists," but the crisis gradually deepens, be impossible, nevertheless Duff hits the mark when he con­ profits fall and bankruptcies multiply. siders the strategic importance of Spain. The fear of an in­ Worse than the present situation, the difficulty for Franco ternal collapse is the only factor which has obliged the Axis is to find a way out that might lead to improvement. The to respect, until now, the neutrality of Spain. The defeats of political tendencies of the Falange and the proximity of H it­ Italy, diminishing the prestige of the dictators, demand rapid ler force him to tighten the alliance with the Axis. But pur­ reparation. It i$ also necessary for the Axis to round out its suing that course, all the internal problems which nourish his dominion in Europe, to keep Stalin in the panic which retains instability will be aggravated. And if forced by his Italian him as an ally of Germany. The Axis will be able to attain and German cronies into the war, the edifice of the "new em­ that end only with great difficulty, without Spain declaring pire" would collapse, perhaps instantaneously, on his head. war on England or, at least, conceding military bases capable Franco would be able to find an immediate perspective of counteracting the strategic importance of Gibraltar and al­ for improvement in a friendly neutrality toward England and lowing it to be attacked. Mussolini and Franco are discussing the United States, which would recompense him with loans this question while we are writing this article. and sufficient international exchange. Thus, there is no lack The consequences of any accord they reach will be to of will as far as Franco and the United States and England worsen Franco's situation. The provisioning of the popula­ are concerned. The ambassadors of those two countries per­ tion and trade with England and the United States, indis­ sistently exert themselves to make Franco a subject knight, p'ensable to bolster the economy of the country, will become similar to the late Metaxas.While Samuel Hoare, the new more and more difficult in proportion to the increase of Fran­ English ambassador, on arriving in Madrid, drinks a toast to co's commitments to the Axis. If, on the contrary, resisting the the future greatness of the Spanish enlpire, hinting slyly of requirements of the latter, Franco develops economic col­ the restitution of Gibraltar, the American ambassador makes laboration with the democracies, he exposes himself to a Ger- March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 71

man invasion and, perhaps, as Duff proposes, the soil of Spain to their aid, the Spanish masses will once again take there­ will become a theatre of war. In both cases, a black future for volutionary initiative. In every sense, and together with Franco and revolutionary perspectives for the Spanish prole­ France and Italy, Spain belongs to the number of European tariat. I affirm without doubt: Whatever position the Caudillo countries where the objective and subjective factors, slowly adopts, the fall of his regime will follow shortly after the last but surely, converge toward great revolutionary upheavals. rifle shot, if not before. The tenacious resistance of the Span­ ish proletariat during the civil war so exhausted the bour­ Mexico, February 10, 1941 geoisie that, unless the objective international situation comes Translated by Bernard Ross The Court-Martial System Of the U. S. Army By MICHAEL CORT On March 8th the United States Army's publicity office of War Baker, and that they took steps against him. He was in \Vashington announced issuance of a new manual of dis­ summarily removed from his position and demoted in rank" cipline; the New York Times headlined the story: "Iron to a Lieutenant Colonel. Within a few short months Ansell Discipline Abandoned by the Army." was forced out of the army entirely and then, as a private The true facts are very easy to verify. Apart from no citizen, opened his campaign for reform of the military code. longer requiring soldiers to salute officers off post, and one He was mainly responsible for the introduction into the or two similar items, the new manual changes nothing. I t says, Senate in 1919 of the Chamberlain Bill aimed at democratiz­ quite correctly, that "modern warfare requires self-reliance ing the military code. in every grade; individuals capable of independent thought Wilson and the officer caste succeeded in beating back all and action, who are inspired by a distinct feeling that as an demands for substantial reform, but the brief glimpse into the individual or as members of a unit they are competent to cope court-martial procedures afforded by Ansell remain in writ- with any condition, situation or adversary." A good guiding ten and documented form. ,. principle-but it does not guide army discipline. The key to On the shelves of the New York Public Library· is a vol­ understanding the army's system of discipline is the court­ ume which bears the inscription, "U. S. Military Affairs Com­ martial, which remains untouched by the "new" manual. mittee, Hearings, Senate 66 :2." It is the record of the hear­ By the end of this month 800,000 civilians will have been ings on the Chamberlain Bill. Within this volume is' par­ drafted into the U. S. Army, and will receive their first sam­ tially revealed the viciousness of bourgeois military justice. ples of the organized brutality that .constitutes army disci­ The army got rid of Ansell, and the Secretary of War, with pline. I f the statistics of the last war hold good, one out of the help of the American Bar Association, white-washed the ten of these men will be court-martialed. Articles of War. But they have not yet purged the public li­ The army's problem in 1917 (just as today) was to digest braries. This half-forgotten volume of official government great numbers of workers who entertained democratic illu­ records provided the source material for this article. sions concerning their rights in the army. A good soldier, in the army's opinion, was one that obeyed all orders quickly and * * * unthinkingly. To achieve this state the commanding officers Powers of Life and Death instituted a reign of terror in the training camps of America. The present military code was taken from the British Men were prosecuted for trivial offenses and given long prison code of 1774 with merely the word "Congress" substituted for terms and in some cases death. Safely. screened from public the word "King." The code has been amended in minor res­ view, this campaign proceeded without interference. In the pects from time to time but has never .undergone any basic spring of 1918, for a few brief months, an accident occurred. changes. Congress has consistently exempted the army from A man with previously concealed liberal views slipped int~ all Constitutional restriCtions. Bound only by a few pseudo­ the position of acting judge Advocate General. When he was legal formalities, the commanding general may select the man thrown out, he blew the lid off. " to be tried, select "the counsel to defend him, select the jurors Brigadier General T. S. Ansell had the reputation of to try him, determine the procedure of the court, define the being "soft with his men," but if the hierarchy had ever offense, apply what rules of evidence he chooses to observe, known the extent of his heresy he never would have become, and apply any sentence ... one day to death. . as a result of seniority, acting judge Advocate General. Upon "Everybody knows these courts are afraid of their com­ his graduation from West Point, Ansell began specializing in manding officers," Gen. Ansell told the Senate committee. military law. He saw in the army terror, not the inevitable "They know they are under the General's hand. He will likely compulsions of an oppressive economic system, but rather change their station and punish them if he does not like the abuses of democracy that could be corrected by legislative way they do on a court. So they say this, 'The commanding reform. All through his army career Ansell kept his reformist general up there is pretty stiff. He cussed us out that last case. theories to himself. When, however, he became the judge We said the mari ought to have a small sentence, and he came Advocate General,' and had access to the Secretary of War back and cussed us out and said he was going to dissolve us without going through. the General Staff, he flooded that de­ and put a lot of his remarks on the record. So let's put it up partment with reports and recommendations. to the old man. We'll give a sentence high enough to suit Far from receiving a sympathetic ear, Ansell dis­ him. Let's give this fellow a sentence of 25 years, and let the covered he was embarrassing President Wilson and Secretary old man cut it down to five if he wants to.' " Page 72 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941

Not only does the commanding general control the sever­ un~er the m~litary 'Code. For instance, two years ago at West ity of the punishment meted out, but he has the power to Pomt an enlIsted man was tried and convicted of lack of re­ return an acquittal, with instructions to the court to recon­ spect for, and obedience to an officer's wife." The conviction sider its verdict aqd find the defendant gUilty. Major Gen­ had been under Article 96 of General Articles of War which eral John, F. O'Ryan submitted statistics to the Senate com­ reads, in part, " ... conduct of a nature to bring discredit mittee covering 6,000 court-martial trials of enlisted men in upon the military service. Punishment at the discretion of the A.E.F. Of the 6,000 tried, only 800 were acquitted, and the court." of those acquitted over ten per cent were subsequently found Ansell told the committee that soldiers were not allowed gUilty by direct order of the commanding officers. All ver­ to walk on the front walks at West Point and that even on dicts do eventually pass over the desk of the Judge Advocate visiting days they were required to take their sweethearts and General in Washington, but he is bound by a firmly estab­ mothers through the rear alley-ways. lished tradition of, support and, confirmation of all findings passed upon by the, field generals. Testimony before the Senate committee included the case a lieutenant who, on his time off from bridge construction There has been, from time" to time, agitation for the es­ ot' at the front, got drunk with a friend who happened to be a tablishment of a civilian appellate court with full review private. This officer was court-martialed, charged with Hcon­ authority. The army hierarchy has firmly resisted this reform. duct unbecoming an officer." Major Elmore, the prosecutor, "In a military code there can be no provision for a court of said in his summation: "If this man had done what he did appeal," Judge Advocate General Crowder told the Senate alone, or' in company of other officers, he would have been committee. "Military justice and the purpose which it is ex­ guilty of no offense. Having done what he did in the company pected to subserve will not permit of the vexatious delays of an enlisted man, I insist that dishonorable discharge from incident to the establishment of an appellate procedure." the Army is not enough for him, but that a sentence of hard Speedy 'execution of sentence is, of course, aimed not at labor must be added." The defendant received three years, justice but at the terrorist effect it has upon the soldiers. The two of which he served after war had ended. army will tolerate no delay beyond that occasioned by the submission of the case to the Judge Advocate General . . . Runcie also revealed that many officers, who had incurred sometimes not even that. Ansell told of a court-martial in a the disfavor of the top bureaucracy, were charged with a training camp in southern Texas while he was acting Judge crime but never called before a court. Their cases would re­ Advocate General. Eleven Negroes were accused of rape and main on file in Washington to serve as hostage in case the sentenced to death. Ansell heard of the case and determined offending officer failed to mend his ways. Other, more difficult to read the trial minutes thoroughly when they reached him officers would be tried and convicted but never sentenced. for review. When he received the transcript, he found, as he Their sentence would be held in abeyance pending their good had expected, that the trial had been of the most summary behavior. character and that simple justice demanded an entirely new Apart from such cases, used to preserve the hierarchy, trial. Upon ordering this he discovered that the men had been charges against officers are usually quashed. Both Ansell' and executed before the case had been submitted to the judge Runcie testified that the most flagrant cases of misconduct by Advocate General's office. officers are consistently ignored by the Judge Advocate Gen- During this same period 20 Negroes were accused of rape eral and the General Staff. . in a New Jersey training camp. They received the barest "1 knew an officer that was an inveterate gambler and semblance of a trial and were sentenced to death. This time swindler," said Runcie. HAil his life he cheated at cards but Ansell received the case before the execution and ordered a one day his crime was so flagrant that charges were brought new trial. Ansell later testified before the Senate committee: against him. A court-martial was convened and set to proceed "I was subject to great pressure from the General Staff. Many when suddenly an arbitrary order from a superior officer ar.. members of the Staff admitted that the case was not too good rived which set aside the court. The're was nothing that could against the defendants, but they insisted that an example had be done." ~o be made whether the boys were gUilty or not. They pleaded with me to hang five, any five, of the 20 and let the rest go Court-Martial Procedure free." The great power exercised by the commanding officer would seem to reduce court-martial to little more than mean­ The Class Basis of This Terror ingless superstructure. And yet that very superstructure is so If the savagery of the officer caste appears, at first glance weighted against justice for the soldier that it is worth exam­ different in kind from the daily ruthlessness of the capi­ ining. To begin with, there is no designated judi~ial or po­ talist class in civilian Ife, it turns out upon examination to be lice authority. Any officer can bring charges against any sol­ but one form of capitalist justice.. The army is the concen- dier at any time. And, as we shall see, a simple charge is usu­ trated image of bourgeois society. • ally tantamount to conviction. The defendant may be charged This is illumined by the testimony of Major J. E. Run­ with the most trivial offense punishable by a $5 fine or 24 cie, Professor of Law at West Point for many years, who hours in jail, and yet he is often kept imprisoned a month be­ spoke out when he returned to civilian life. He testified to fore his trial is started. When officers have grudges against the Senate committee: 'certain men and can discover' only minor infractions of law, "The Cadet stays there for four years and he finds the they keep the men in; the guardhouse the full statutory period enlisted men engaged not in military duties, but in domestic before bringing them to trial. . ones. Many of them have no arms, their only uniforms are The defendant is then questioned by his superior and en­ working ones, laborers' and artisans'. The inevitable result is joys no legal protection from self-incriminating testimony. that the Cadet comes out with a feeling that his privilege is Ansell reported ~hat the army "habitually forces testimony to be served, a feeling of class distinction.Courts-martial main­ out of the accused by third degree and then uses that testi­ tain this structure. Enlisted men receive more severe punish­ mony against him at the trial." ments than do officers. More than that, an enlisted man may When the defendant is finally brought to trial, the per­ be tri~nd convicted of something that is no offense at all ... sonnel of the court is determined by the commanding officer. March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 73

The defend~nt has no challenges without cause and only one An additional advantage of the lower court is the absence of challenge WIth cause. This challenge is then tried by the re­ a.ny official stenographer. The more flagrant cases of persecu­ maining members of court. In other words, to change the com­ tIOn are most often found in the lower courts where the officer position of the court all officer-judges would have to vote for runs little chance of future embarrassment because of written the enlisted man and against a fellow officer. records. The defendant is usually allowed to retain counsel of his Ansell revealed a method commonly used to circumvent own though under the code the Judge Advocate is charged the restr~ction upon length of prison' sentence emanating from with the responsibility for the defense. The counsel avail­ low~r tnbunal~. A certain captain in France had a grudge able to the defendant has usually had, up to that moment, no agamst a soldIer but could never get anything on him. One familiarity with the case. Runcie testified: uRecent~y there day this man overstayed his leave by a few hours and he was was a sentence of imprisonment for life where the counsel for jailed. The captain's problem was to conduct the trial in a the defense had been a bystander suddenly appointed, and lower court, so that no stenographic record would be made said in open court that he never before had seen the accused of it, but ~Iso to give the man a longer sentence than a Sum­ arid that he had no knowledge of the case." mary court had the power to impose-six months. The cap­ Since the court has the power to affirm or deny the defen­ tain solved his dilemma by bringing three charges against the dant's choice of counsel, it may use this means to prevent him ~an: a?sent without leave, failing to report for duty, and from getting the best counsel. Where counsel is designated dlsobeymg. a command. The man was tried in a Summary by the Judge Advocate, it is usually an inexperienced ushave­ c?urt-martIal on all three charges, one at a time, and given tail. H Examination of 5,000 cases by Ansell during his brief SIX months on each charge. The captain thereby succeeded term as Judge Advocate General, revealed that a second lieu­ in imposing eighteen months' imprisonment at hard labor. tenant (lowest commissioned officer) was counsel in 3,871 cases, or 77 per cent. Officers' Prestige at All Costs SummafY, Special or General Courts-Martial steno­ Should the defendant happen to obtain good counsel, the graphic record or not, the findings of the court reflect the de­ rules of the court prevent him from effectively helping his si!es of the commanding officer and subsequent review by the client. The counsel is restricted to giving advice to the defen­ hIerarchy generally serves to uphold his hand. One example of dant and framing questions which are handed by the accused confirmation of unjust convictions merely to maintain the to the Judge Advocate on slips of paper. Any legal objections solidarity of the officer caste occurred in 1917 in a Texas are also handed on slips of paper to the Judge Advocate who training camp. Ansell, who was acting Judge Advocate Gen­ silently rules upon them. The counsel may not address the eral at the time, ha~ intimate knowledge of the case and pre­ court or interfere in any way with the proceedings. sented it to the Senate committee. , There are three classes of court-martial: Summary, Special and General. The Summary and Special are the lowest courts Eleven non-commissioned officers were gathered around and may be convened by a captain and brigade commander a crap game in a company street during their free period. respectively. These courts are used a great deal ne~r the front, About half of them were engaged in the game, the other half for their procedure is quick and simple and no minutes are being spectators. Captain Harvey, graduated the year be­ kept of the trial. The General Court-Martial is used to try fore from West Point, discovered this game, placed them all officers and soldiers accused of the more serious crimes. under arrest and ordered them to their barracks. The next The principal characteristic of these courts, common to morning he noticed that these eleven men were absent from all three, is the unique position enjoyed by the Judge Advo­ drill and went to their barracks. The men explained that the cate. His authority over the court and the course of the trial Articles of War provided that no man shall perform military finds no counterpart in civil jurisprudence. duties while under arrest. They said further, that if he re­ As Judge he passes upon all evidence submitted to the leased them from arrest they would report for drill at once. court (there are no established rules of evidence in the mili­ Captain Harvey wa,s enraged and immediately charged them tary code), he is also the prosecutor and charged with obtain­ with mutiny. Between the time of the officer's charge and the ing a conviction, and he may allow the defendant to obtain a trial, these men were demoted from their non-commissioned counsel of his own, or he may reserve that function for status to the rank of private and, stood trial as such. himself. When this case came before' Ansell for review, he threw Ansell attributed much of. the viciouness of military jus­ out the findings and ordered, a new trial. Ansell's reversal, tices to the mUltiple powers of the Judge Advocate. liThe however, was countermanded by the War Department, and files are full of these cases," he saicJ, "but there is one I re­ the convictions stood. Ansell told the Senate committee: ult member particularly. A lieutenant, a quartermaster, was put was perfectly obvious to all of us that the men should never (by his commanding officer) to making a trap for an en­ have been tried at all, and that the trial was illegal in many listed man out in a western department, to catch him and to respects. The charge was imperfect, defense made for them see if he was stealing goods out of a storehouse. The lieutenant was not the defense that should have been made, and their set the trap and said that he caught the man, which I very rights were disregarded during the trial. The young West Point much doubt. He was, of course, the prosecuting witness. Then offi~er's conduct was lawless and arbitrary and he ought to he was appointed Judge Advocate of the court, and then he have been court-martialed for his part in the affair. But was assigned counsel for the accused, and he functioned this case went through the entire proceeding from bottom to in all three capacities. The man was convicted." top of the military hierarchy without a discovery of any of Thi~ procedure actually makes the other judges super­ these errors. Or at least, no action upon them. The men ... fluous, for the Judge Advocate can so control evidence and received long' prison terms at hard labor. The War Depart­ procedure as to allow only the verdict he may desire. Even ment held that all" proceedings, findings and judgments of a with this degree of authority the Judge Advocates have al­ court-martial are final, beyond all remedial, curative' power, ways preferred to sit in Summary or Special Courts-Martial when those proceedings and judgments are once approved by where the numbers of judges is sharply reduced; three to five the commanding general who brought that court into being." officers on the Special, a single officer on the Summary court. Official records, removed from the Judge Advocate Gen- Page 74 FOURTH .INTERNATIONAL March 1941

eral's office by Ansell, revealed that out of every 100 charges a pass in his possession. Ten years at hard labor. brought against soldiers by officers, 97 were tried; and out Pvt. Clayton H. Cooley. Absent without leave july 29 of every hundred trials 96 were convicted. From April 6, to August 26. 40 years hard labor. 1917 to August 31, 1919, there were 30,916 men tried before Pvt. Charles Cino. III with the advanced stage of a vene­ General Courts-Martial and an estimated 400,000 men tried real disease. Instead of being hospitalized he was ordered to by the Summary and Special courts-this according to the get his pack and drill. He escaped camp. 30 years hard labor. testimony of Brigadier .General Edward Kriger of the judge Pvt. Calvin W. Harper. Absent without leave. 20 years Advocate General's office. These figures, which applied to an hard liJJor. army of 4,000,000, meant that over ten per cent of the army Pvt. Salvatore Pastoria. Took two weeks off to see his was tried by courts-martial during the war. sick wife and his year-old baby ill with malnutrition. 15 Significantly, it was not during overseas service that the years hard labor. soldier was in greatest danger of being court-martialed, but Pvt. Marion Williams. Refused to surrender a package immediately upon induction into a training camp. Faced in of cigarettes and told the sergeant to "go to hell." 40 years 1917 with a great influx of civilians, the army launched a hard labor. reign of terror as the best method of keeping these new men Pvt. Lawrence Sims. Absent without leave. 25 years hard in line. The slightest infraction of a rule brought immediate labor. and awful retribution. News of this terror began to seep out, Classic examples of army persecution, which later and frightened parents and wives demanded a Congressional achieved great notoriety in America, were the death sentences investigation. The army succeeded in stalling this investiga­ passed upon four young volunteers in France. tion until after the war ended. However, even in 1919 public' Sebastian, 19 years old and Cook, 18, were assigned to opinion was running high against the hierarchy and judge an advance observation post in the American sector of the Advocate General Crowder felt compelled to defend his office western front. They were under bombardment continually and with the words, "We never expect the defendants to serve the had received no relief for seven days. On the eighth ,day, when full sentences. I t was merely that severity was necessary at relief did arrive, they were discovered asleep at their post. that time to teach discipline." Their trial lasted exactly 40 minutes and the entire transcript of evidence and testimony covered four loosely written pages. Some Typical Case Histories They were sentenced to death. What Crowder meant by discipline was, of course, a blind, The other two volunteers, Ledoyen, 19, and Fishback, unthinking, automatic submission to the slightest whim of a 18, were behind the lines under a sadistic drill-sergeant who superior. The fact remains that one man in ten was tried, maneuvered them long hours every day in deep snow. After usually convicted, and served sentence. Here are just a few a long morning drill and a brief respite for lunch, the sergeant, of the cases that Ansell quoted from the terror of ' 17 : in spite of the obviously exhausted condition of the boys, or­ A farm boy of 20 was drafted and sent to Camp Dix in dered them out for further drill. They were not able to get New jersey. During his first month there he was assigned to their packs on their backs and fell into their bunks in a semi­ K. P. duty. He saw the cooks smoking and so he lit one of conscious condition. They were court-martialed for refus­ his own cigarettes. A sergeant entered the kitchen, saw the ing to obey a command, and sentenced to death. boy smoking and bawled, "Drop that cigarette you God damn Without any direct knowledge of the two cases, according rookie. Give me that package of cigarettes in your pocket." to Ansell's testimony, General Pershing sent word to Presi­ The boy, not understanding army discipline, replied that he dent Wilson that the death sentences were necessary to the could see 'a package of cigarettes in the sergeant's pocket and good of the service. Wilson turned to the General Staff for if the sergeant could carry them there was no reason why he advice and the General Staff decided that since Pershing had couldn't. The boy was immediately brought to trial, convicted personally entered the case there was nothing it could do but and sentenced to 25 years hard labor. This case reached public uphold his hand regardless of the merits of the cases. attention and a great protest filled the ears of Congressmen. The American Bar Association appointed a board to white­ Wilson finally yielded to public opinion and commuted wash army discipline. The report of this board read, in refer­ the se~tences to long prison terms. The War Department then ,ence to this particular case, that the soldier's conduct was, issued 'a statement that the army never intended that the " ... a canker of gangrene that the surgeon must cut out lest sentences be executed as handed down and that their severity it spread to the whole military body." was merely for a "beneficial effect upon army discipline." John Schroeder, Machine Gun Company, 56th Infantry, Throughout the month-long Senate hearings there was had a very ill mother. He knew that his company was due only one private heard, but his testimony was probably the to go overseas any moment and he tried desperately to get a most damning. He was Pvt. W. B. Thomas, Company F, 16th few days' leave to visit his mother before leaving but without Engineers. He had been an attorney before the war and be­ success. He received word from a relative that his mother cause of that he was in great demand as a defense counsel. was dying, left his camp without permission and rushed to He testified before the Senate committee that after he had oe-' her bedside. In the four· days he was absent his company was fended several men his superior came to him and said that ordered abroad and boarded ship. Schroeder returned to his he was "making a big mistake" by defending all these men. camp to find his company gone and himself charged with When Thomas ignored the warning his superiors began to prepare a trap for him. In the meantime Thomas was selected "trying to < evade overseas serv!ce." He was ob~iously not guilty of that particular and senous charge, but hIS attorney, by the men to head a delegation to the captain to get an ac­ a second lieutenant, persuaded him to plead guilty and throw counting of the men's pay placed in his keeping. The captain himself upon the mercy of the court. He was sentenced to 25 refused to give an accounting of the company funds and again years hard labor. '. ,. threatened Thomas. The extent 'of the terror can be Judged by Ansell s testI- A month later, Thomas, on leave, went into a small mony that the following cases con~tituted a single day's re­ French town near his camp. While there he took suddenly ill port from a single camp (Dix): and went to the Red Cross depot. The nurse put him to bed Pvt. Sanford B. Every. Convicted of unlawfully having and then sent. him to the base hospital where he was kept for March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 75 three ~eeks. \Vhen Thomas returned to his company nothing caste is only a sharply focussed, reflection of th.e capitalist was saId concerning his hospitalization. A month later how­ oppression the army serves. ever, ~hen he again headed a delegation trying to get ~n ac­ The demand for military reform was easily beaten back cou?tIng .of the men's funds, the captain preferred charges once the Congress became fully aware of the class interests agaInst hIm and he was court-martialed for being absent with­ involved. Peace descended upon the War Department and the out leave the three weeks he was in the hospital. Thomas ob­ office of the Judge Advocate General. taine.d statements from both the Red Cross depot and the base But t?ere was .still work to be done. A new file was iJl­ hospItal that he was seriously ill, but the court convicted him stalled whIch contaIned the names and case histories of every on t~e technicality that he had failed to report to the company man d~shonorably discharged from the army. Employers were medIcal officer before going to the ba.se hospital. He served. to be Informed of the "bad record" made by these men and three months at hard labor and when he returned to his com­ were to be urged to replace the "trouble maker" with a man pany he was informed by Colonel Fowler that he would be with a good army record. forbidden to act any more as counsel for soldiers. The story here told occupies about one-third of the bound Why Congress Did Nothing Senate hearings on proposed changes in the Articles of War. The end of the war and the demobilization of troops The other two thirds of the volume are taken up with defense opened to the press and public a fund of information and of . the artic~es by variou~ members of the hierarchy and the evidence concerning military justice. It was then that Congress \VIlson cabmet. They {lId not deny Ansell's case histories. appointed committees and made brave speeches. What these They simply drew different philosophical conclusions from crusaders did not at first recognize was that the repressions them. Their philosophy was that of all oppressors. Judge Ad­ th~~ wailed over were, and ~emain, an integral part of the vocate General Crowder stated their philosophy when he said mIlItary code, not abuses of It. Demands were made in Con­ in summarizing his arguments against any reform: "The dis~ gress that enlisted men sit as jurors on' all courts-martial. integration of the Russian (Czarist) army was due not to agr­ These demands w.ere labeled by the army hierarchy as "Bol­ long tyranny or oppression or reaction, or any other like shevist," and as "absolutely unworkable." The army was cause, but entirely to a failure to treat disobedience in small right, in essence. The military code could not be democratized things and great things alike." without playing havoc with the officer caste and the army That is, the real danger is in not being severe enough. China and the Russian Revolution By LEON TROTSKY (Note by Natalia Trotsky: The foregoing was written by some time ago under the personal direction of Stalin. In the Comrade Trotsky in the early part of July, 1940, as a first draft. entire library of mankind I do not know, and hardly anyone Events prevented him from continuing the work and it was un­ else knows, of a book in which facts, documents-and further­ finished when Comrade Trotsky was murdered by a GPU assas­ more facts kn.own to everybody-are so dishonestly altered, sin the following month. It was to have been the introduction to mangled, or SImply deleted from the march of events in the the Chinese translation of his History of the Russian Revolutio~.) interests of glorifying a single human being, namely Stalin. Thanks to unlimited material resources at the disposal of The day I learned that my History of the Russian Revo­ the falsifiers, the rude and untalented falsification has been lution was to be published in the Chinese language was a holi­ translated into all the languages of civilized mankind and day for me. Now I have received word that the work of trans­ circulated by compUlsion in millions and tens of millions of lation has been speeded up and that the first volume will be copies. issued next year. - We have at our disposal neither such financial resources Let me express the firm hope that the book will prove profitable to Chinese readers. Whatever may be the shortcom­ nor such a colossal apparatus. But we do dispose of some­ ings of my work, one thing I can say with assurance: Facts thing greater: concern for historical truth and a correct are there presented with complete conscientiousness, that is, sc~entific method. A falsification, even one compiled by a mIghty state apparatus, cannot withstand the test of time and on the basis of verification with original sources; and in any in the long run is blown up owing to the internal contradic­ case, not a single fact is altered or distorted, in the interests tions. On the contrary, historical truth, established through a of this or that preconceived theory or, what is worse yet, in scientific method, has its own internal persuasiveness and in the interests of this or that personal reputation. the long run gains mastery over minds. The very necessity of The misfortune of the present young generation in all reviewing, i.e., recasting and, altering-still more precisely, countries, among them China, consists in this: that there has falsifying-the history of the revolution, arose from this: been created under the label of Marxism a gigantic factory of that the bureaucracy found itself compelled to sever the um­ historical, theoretical and all other kinds of falsifications. This bilical cord binding ft to the Bolshevik Party. To recast, i.e., factory bears the name "Communist Inteniational." The total­ to falsify the history of the revolution, became an urgent itarian regime, i.e., the regime of bureaucratic command in all necessity for the bureaucracy which usurped the revolution spheres of life, inescapably seeks to extend its rule also over and found itself compelled to cut short the tradition of Bol­ the past. History becomes transformed into raw material for whatever constructions are required by the ruling totalitarian shevism. clique. This fate was suffered by the October revolution and The essence of Bolshevism was the class policy of the by the History of the Bolshevik Party. The latest and to date proletariat, which alone could bring about the conquest of most finished document of falsification and frameup is the power in October. In the course of its entire history, Bolshev­ History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, issued ism came out irreconcilably against the policy of collaboration Page 76 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941, with the bourgeoisie. Precisely in this consisted the fundament­ impossible the class struggle against war. If the defeat of the al contradiction between Bolshevism and Menshevism. Still Chinese revolution, conditioned by the leadership of the Com­ more, the struggle within the labor movement, which preceded intern, prepared the conditions for Japanese occupation, then ,the rise· of Bolshevism and Mens.hevism, always in the last the defeat of the Spanish revolution and the ignominious analysis revolved around the central question, the central al­ capitulation of the "People's Front" in France prepared the ternative: either collaboration with the bourgeoisie or ir­ conditions for the aggression and unprecedented military suc­ reconcilable class struggle. The policy of "People's Fronts" cesses of Hitler. does not include an iota of novelty, if we discount the solemn The victories of Japan, like the victories of Hitler, are and essentially charlatan name. The matter at issue in all not the last word of history. War this time, too, will turn out cases concerns the political subordination of the proletariat to to be the mother of revolutions. Revolution will once again the left wing of the exploiters, regardless of whether this prac­ pose and review all the questions of the history of mankind in tice bears the name of coalition or left bloc (as in France) or advanced as well as in backward countries, and make a be­ "People's Front" in the language of the Comintern. ginning for overcoming the very d(stinc;tion between advanced Th~ policy of the "People's Front" bore especially malig­ and backward countries. nant fruit because it was applied in the epoch of the imp.er­ Reformists, opportunists, routine men wiII be flung aside ialist decay of the bourgeoisie. Stalin succeeded in conducting by the course of events. Only revolutionists, tempered revolu­ to the end, in the Chinese revolution, the policy which the tionists enriched by the experience of the past, will be able to Mensheviks tried to realize in the revolution of 1917. The rise to the level of great events. The Chinese people are des­ same thing was repeated in Spain. Two grandiose revolutions tined to occupy the first place in the future destinies of man­ suffered catastrophe owing to this: that the methods of the kind. I shall be happy if the advanced Chinese revolutionists leadership were the methods of Stalinism, i.e., the most malig­ will assimilate from this History certain fundamental rules nant form of Menshevism. of class politics which wiII help them to avoid fatal mistakes In the course of five years, the policy of the "People's in the future, mistakes which led to the shipwreck of the revo­ Front," by subjecting the proletariat to the bourgeoisie, made lution of 1925-1927. Hitler's "New Order" By WILLIAM F. SIMMONS From the Northcap to the Dardanelles, Hitler's "new al considerations of importance to the German army general order" now embraces most of continental Europe. His furious staff, and it also aims to solve the problem that is called sweep of conquest obliterated national boundaries and sent "lebensraum" for Germany's teeming popUlation. But the governments into exile. The greater part of the continent, real purpose, summing up all other considerations, is the one exclusive of the USSR is "united" into one economic bloc of buttressing and rejuvenating, under German hegemony, under the domination of German capitalism to serve the re­ the . decaying capitalist system of which fascism is the most qdrements of German imperialism and, above all, to serve extreme and the most violent expression. Accordingly, the its permanent war needs. reorganization first eliminates the weaker sections in the struc­ But this is the least stable of all social orders. The chang­ ture: small nations are wiped out. Their possibility of con­ es wrought in Europe produce their own internal dynamics. tinued independent existence, squeezed in as they were, in the The' much vaunted stability of Hitler's order will become fierce competition between giants, was questionable anyhow. transformed into its opposite of social crisis and convulsicns A conquered Britain-if and when-may serve as a buffer right in the heart of the vastly expanded Nazi domain. Hit­ against the American empire; but the ruthless reorganization ler's negation of the European state system leads directly to cannot tolerate any buffer states on the continent. In Hitler's his own negation. modernized scheme of capitalism the division into small na­ This may seem contradictory in view of the terrifying tions is only an obstacle to be eliminated. His stubborn views power now in the hands of the Nazi regime. However, the im­ on the question of race will also be subject to modifications plications of this "new order" are contradictory in the extreme. whenever required by further imperial necessities. In some ways, no doubt, it serves for the moment to bolster German capitalism has learned from the Soviet planned apd strengthen the decaying capitalist system by giving it economy and attempts to utilize the lesson for its own pur­ a Inuch more rational form of organization. But the very poses. tlDer Staat greift zu!" Hitler is gearing European in­ rationalization of both the economic foundation and the dustry to serve the Nazi permanent war needs. With each ad­ political superstructure of. the "new order" lays the basis for vance into new territories efforts are made to harness material and forces the tempo of advance toward a Socialist United resources. Unemployed manpower is put to work. Forme'rly States of Europe. Soon it will be demonstrated in real life independent countries are turned into spheres of regulated that there is no other way out. production, operating to an extent in harmony with their On this point, however, there should be no mistake. Hit­ means and resources, but mainly in accordance with the re­ ler's aims and the objective consequences of his murderous quirements of the Nazi domination. Hence agriculture in cer­ advance are two entirely different things. Hitler's aims have, tain specific regions is to be industrialized. Plans are even ad­ of course, nothing in common with socialism. On the con~rary, vanced for the modernization of French peasant economy. the actually motivating force in all of his conquests IS the Backward regions su'ch as the Balkans-those parts so far dire need of German capitalism, today in mortal combat with included in the "new order"-are drawn into greater Ger­ its British cousin and tomorrow facing the far more serious many's production orbit. Everywhere, and particularly in the struggle with the American empire. . last named regions, technological advance begins to make new The reorganization of continental Europe serves strategIc- strides. Restrictions are imposed on the capitalist proprietors March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 77 for the good of greater Germany, while prices and wages are the Nazis are proceeding instead to exploit the labor forces regulated. of the defeated and occupied countries. The capitalist pro­ I t goes without saying that for the German capitalist prietors become Nazi satraps, compelled to relinquish a good structure all these factors further accelerate concentration and deal of their power to the masters of the new empire. These centralization of industry and finance; but they also call masters rule supreme throughout the "new order." As a result forth a constantly increasing state supervision. Behind it all the mass of the people are thrown together on common ground. the permanent war needs exert ever greater pressure. There They all face the one common oppressor. This is a quantita­ need be no doubt that this mighty whiplash of rationalization tive change producing an enormous qualitative difference. raises the level of labor productivity despite the suppressed, Social conflicts, to be sure, are harnessed in a more severe and therefore inarticulate, hostility of labor. More profits straitjacket. They may not break through this harness im­ accrue to the masters. Moreover, we should never fight the mediately; but social contradictions remain, new ones are fact that only a vastly increased labor productivity could added, and they intensify within this new framework. have made possible the rapid rejuvenation of German capital­ At first these contradictions are manifested in the very ism under Hitler. much distorted form of an increased, if not an entirely new The Seeds of Decay Within feeling of national patriotism. In Denmark, for example, Here we have certain elements of capitalist expansion where the popUlation has so far been the least rebellious, it presented in a new form but resting on the same old founda­ has shown a rising affection for the king who was left intact tion of private property: the system has not devised any other. even though his throne was knocked out from under. He be­ Viewed against the background of the uneven development of came a national symbol and the center of this new feeling. The capitalism, such expansion for one particular section of the new and greater affection bestowed upon him is in reality the general system is, of course, possible. The war itself, however~ confused expression of reaction against imperialist oppression. is the proof that it is not possible for the system as a whole. But a king is, of course, the weakest of reeds to lean upon and, The exact possible limits of this expansion we do not know. besides, Hitler cannot afford for very long to let even such But we do know that it takes place in the period of general feeble symbols remain. In an effort to squelch all manifesta­ capitalist decline and decay. The historical spiral of capitalist tion of opposition he will soon replace them with his own development is now definitely on its downward course. The henchmen. Replacements of this kind have taken place in a "new order" is the most desperate effort yet witnessed of number of instances already and they were not confined mere­ keeping this system alive against its own elements of destruc­ ly to political posts. Hitler's henchmen are taking over the tion. And, as will soon be verified in the process of real life, direction also of productive enterprises. They have to drive each of the steps taken in this expansion carries its own deadly all productive efforts ahead ruthlessly and relentlessly to contradictions, vastly intensified by the imperialist war.* satisfy the ever growing war needs of the expanded empire. Throughout the "unified" continent the formerly existing They will stand out the more clearly as collectors of capital­ mutual and reciprocal relations have now changed. There is ist profits, guardians of a frightfully decayed system, the very a change of quantity into a vastly expanded German empire embodiment of the most intense exploitation, mass misery and for, in reality, this is what Hitler's "unification" means. With mass slaughter: A bonapartist police regime which loses aIr this there appears also a difference in quality. Formerly the remaining semblance of a people's movement. These slave­ mass of the people in each separate nation were held in leash drivers will become the immediate center of all hatred of ex­ by their ruling national capitalist groups who were engaged ploitation. in a constant struggle of competition for markets, resources Under these conditions the genuine people's movement or territory, one nation against another. It is true that the develops from below, and in opposition to the Nazi regime smaller nations could reach out only for the smaller crumbs; and all that it stands for. The distorted form of this opposi­ but that made the competition no less fierce. Mutual hostilities tion expressed in deeper nationalist feeling has little or no became the rule rather than mutual friendships. Thus this possibility of realizing any aspiration of return to old na­ multiple state system served as a buffer against international tional boundaries in the sense of restoration of the many small working class solidarity. It facilitated the sway and domina­ independent states. This nationalist feeling can neither ob­ tion of each national capitalist group over its objects of ex­ scure nor serve as a substitute for the far more fundamental ploitation and made it easier for unscruplous bureaucratic urge of actual European-and wider-unity against the com­ labor leaders to function in each national arena as agents of mon oppressor. That urge for unity will follow inevitably in their bourgeois masters. the next stage. Thus the basic Nazi tenet of more intense Now most of the national boundaries are wiped out, most nati'onalism produces its opposite reaction-internationalism. likely never to be restored-at least not in their old meaning. Hitler's "new order" faces the dilemma: its permanent Intent on not repeating the mistake of the Allies in 1918 of war needs grow more rapidly than its acquisitions. There imposing severe outright indemnities upon the vanquished, could be no more telling proof of this than the constant ex­ pansion of the Nazi orbit, both the conquests and the pene­ *This article was written two months or more ago. Since trations. And Hitler cannot stop even with a possible victory then, the verification predicted by Comrade Simmons has begun: over Great Britain. Being the most desperate representative Hitler's plan to rule through a wide stratum in the occupied lands of the hardest pressed capitalist sector in a world of uneven that would come to amicable terms with Germany and govern as capitalist development, in which imperialist competition grows "independent" nations, has broken down completely in Holland ever keener, he must go on. Now he attempts to harness the and Norway, great strike struggles in Rolland were halted only resources of the European continent. But this harnessing fol­ by death penalties and naked bayonets, there have been serious lows the pattern of "autarchy," a reactionary measure which physical clashes between the Nazis and Norwegian wOTkers, etc. is in direct conflict with the essentially progressive implica­ Hitler knew how the universal hostility of the conquered popula­ tions flowing from the obliteration of national boundaries tions had destroyed the morale of the German troops during the and the "unification" of Europe. The interdependence of na­ last war in Belgium, France, the Ukraine, and sought in this war to avoid direct military rule of the occupied countries. In that he tions, or of national economies, is by no means lessening. On the contrary, it is increasing ..Any attempt at "autarchy~' has_ already failed.-EDITORS. Page 78 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941

~rings out immediately, and more sharply, the growing need ing" the fa~herland far from the soil of their ancestors and for the world market. m~st often in hostile territory. The effect on the soldiers of Besides, in the scheme of intensified capitalist exploita­ bemg surrounded by universal hostility is inescapable. tion, Europe cannot substitute for colonies. The greater the . M?reover, the Nazi advance in the Balkans, for example, industrialization of war the more urgent is the question of raw ~mmedlately brings the agricultural products of such granar­ materials. Not merely raw materials in general, but certain into with the German farmers, undermining specific and essential kinds that most often are available in ~es comp~tition If not ~estroymg t~e last of the limited privileges which they sufficient quantities only in certain parts of the globe. And the had enjoyed ever smce the days of the Hohenzollerns in order problem presented is not only the one of buying these raw to pl~y the assi~ned role of a social counterweight to the in­ materials for cash or barter, it is primarily the problem of ~ustnal proletanat. The industrialization of agriculture which securing control over the sources of supply as well as of the tollows .m .SUc? territories must necessarily mean a growing avenues of transportation. In other words, the "new order," ~roletanamzatIOn of the native populations. But this process even though it may embrace the whole of continental Europe IS not confined to such territories. Throughout the spheres of exclusive of the USSR, intensifies and enlarges all the needs of the "ne:", order," the ec?no~ic reorganization, its greater con­ nation?l capitalism. Above all it will require for its survival centr.atIOn and centr.a~IzatIOn of ,industry together with the new fields of capital investment and exploitation of cheap growmg state superVISIon, leads to a constant elimination of colonial labor. However, the orbit of the world market is nar· the middle class and an ever greater proletarianization of the rowing, not for any rational reason, but because of the lack popUlation. At the same time the industrialization of war­ of buying power of the masses. So, while Hitler may now be or to put the matter in other words: the fortunes of mechan­ reaching out for the Mosul oil fields, tomorrow he faces the ized wa~fan~ depending s~ ~ompletely and exclusively on the American empire in a far'more deadly struggle for control productIon. In huge quantItIes of all its intricate implements, of the world market and for redivision of the world. The raw ma~e~Ials and fuels-elevates the industrial proletariat permanency of war is inescapable-except for the proletarian to a pOSItIOn of new and greater importance. Not one battle revolution. could be won; nay not even started, without its productive The Workers in the "New Order" labor. The factories, the mills and the mines become the most What, then, is the position of the proletariat in Hitler's decisive part of the battlefront. All the Nazi glitter smeared "new order"? Specific information is scant. Some of its gen­ o~ to the "new o:der" would fade and decompose and the eral features, however, we do know. It would be preposterous hlde~us structure .Itself wo~ld collapse if the industrial pro­ to attempt to describe here the strain of war upon the mass letanat should fall to furmsh, these all important sinews. In of the population, the frightful devastation from which no the hands of the proletariat lies a power far greater and far geographical sphere is totally exempt, the life in constant fear more magnificent than all the imposing Nazi conquests could of bombings, the actual destruction of homes with its attend­ ever con vey. ant misery, or the killing and maiming of both young and ~Ve do not forg~t the devastating blows suffered by these old, that could be described adequately only by those who workmg masses dunng the last two decades, failures and be­ have experienced its tragic realities. It is important to remem· trayals by their parties, both socialist and communist, the ber that all these terrible consequences of war always bear terrible defeats and the destruction of their organizations. down the heaviest upon the proletariat. The effect that these In fact the monstrosity. of the present mechanized mass must produce we can also understand. They constitute some slaughter could become possible only on the background of of the bitter lessons out of which our class will mature. such disasters. The workers were once again reduced to the This is the class that carries the actual burden in the r ~ . lo~est depths of wage slavery, long exacting hours of toil, a organized Europe. In the first place, the reorganization is a mIserable wage level, and all their rights wiped out. For a gigantic levelling process. I t is a levelling downward. For the long time reaction to any stimulus on their part seemed less mass of the people it means, above all, a terribly reduced than normal. standard of livjng. From now on they will subsist on perm­ anent ration cards. Obviously the lack of consumers' goods, Now, however, new political conjunctures are appearing if not actual starvation, will pinch ever harder. On top of this in rapid succession and are striking sledge hammer blows at is the forced tempo in the factories. Labor in this new scheme the decrepit capitalist structure. Simultaneously the war­ of exploitation is forced labor. In the occupied countries new revived gigantic industrial machinery, while grinding profits antagonisms and eventual conflicts in industry are added to out of the toil of the workers, is also inevitably pounding a the hatred of the oppressors. new consciousness into their minds, They will begin to wield Knowing in general the conditions in what was pre-war their new power and put it to the test, at first to realize their Germany, it is clear to us that the German workers themselves most elementary demands; but rising also to greater heights. can in no way be exempt from this enormous strain. The com­ Out of their experience a new leadership will be forged. There mon notion that the German nation as a whole would draw will be proof aplenty that the crushing of labor organizations benefits from the conquests is simply preposterous. The class by no means eliminated the class struggle. On the contrary; lines are much more sharply drawn there. Nor could Hitler new fuel is being added to fire the smouldering flames of re­ just .simply take measures to feed the German masses at the volt. The proletarian hatred of the fascist regime must of price of starvation in the occupied countries. In the first place necessity become universal regarless of former national that would be too risky, and in the second place, while the boundaries. And the workers alone, finding their new place in Nazis take loot from these countries, nevertheless each one of the "new order," can lead to a better road in the coming up­ them, for one reason or. another, is considered important in heavals. Their aim will eventually become crystallized into the whole scheme of the "new order," and is not altogether the exact opposite of the Hitlerian "unification" of Europe, stripped. We may be sure that the German masses suffer the the complete synthesis-the free people in a Socialist United economic privations no less than the others, and in addition States of Europe. Undoubtedly there will be stimulus aplenty' they bear the brunt of the battlefield. While these privations leading in this direction. It does not matter whether it finds grow at home the German soldiers find themselves "defend- its initial impulse in Berlin, Prague, Oslo or Paris. March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 79 The End of French Democracy By TERENCE PHELAN many. Thirteen million Socialists and Communists, filled with Terence Phelan witnessed the fall of France from a s.ound combativ~ instinct, were ready to fight before re­ Paris, where he remained till September. Long detained in actIon got firmly mto the. saddle. The Socialist leadership, Portugal, he has finally made his way to this country. We however, helped elect Hmdenburg who appointed Hitler publish here the first of a series of his articles. Though Chancellor. The Stalinists, then in their HThird Period," their lateness prevents these articles from having the having alrea~y on a regi~nal scale (the Prussian referendum) journalistic timeliness of such bourgeois reports as those formed a UnIted front WIth the Nazis to vote for the ouster of Andre Maurois, "Pertinax," and Genevieve Tabouis, this lateness is offset by their being the first account that is ~f ~he So~ial Democrat~~ Govern~ent, operated on the slogan: both eye-witness and Marxist. To believe the bourgeois u FIr~t HItle~, th~n us! . The mam enemy, they claimed, was journalists, one would suppose France fell because Reynaud SOCIal-FascIsm, meanmg the Socialists. had the· wrong kind of mistress, or because Germany had .Once in power Hitler consolidated his regime. The old five tanks to France's three or because the Nazis bought partIes were destroyed; the workers' cadres smashed; the great General X, OT other E. Phillips Oppenheim nonsense. Here mass of. German ~orkers were beaten down, exhausted, con­ is the real story that American workers can make some fused, dI.sgusted WIth both Social-Democracy and Stalinism. sense of, telling how the French ruling class had succeeded MeanwhIle a new generation, nurtured in semi-starvation and in so smashing French democracy, long before Hitler at­ tacked, that there was nothing left with which to fight. desperat~ ~truggle, a dynamic youth, impatient of tlsocialist" and StalInIst betrayal,Jell prey t~ Hitler's skillful demagogy. All the ,forces of genume renovatIon and progress which had ~een mlsle~~, wasted, a~d. thrown away by the corrupt, blind Only 25 days after that misty dawn when siren-wakened democratIc and StahnIst leaders were now perverted in a Parisians saw the first attacking German bombers weaving un­ new ?esp,erate ~ope. That youth now forms the shock troops harmed in a sinisterly beautiful net of rose and gold anti­ of HItler s ~r~Ies .. The fa~atical young combat troops whom aircraft fire and heard the unforgettable rumble of bombs I saw roll smgmg mto Pans on June 14, 1940 were motivated destroying the suburban airfields, what was left of those same ?y one burning idea-that they were fighting against capital­ Parisians apathetically watched the grey-green wave of Ger­ Ism. (Try to sell them Weimar again!) They are deceived in man men and guns roll along the diagonal boulevards, down that belief, but the belief is a fact. And it is a fact that makes the proud Rue Royale, past the efficient batteries of cameras, the St.alinist policy.of 1928-1933 in Germany one of the great­ radio commentators, and reviewing officers in the spacious est cnmes of workmg-class history. Place de la Concorde. The outer world was apparently amazed. It need not have been. The scene was only the last act in a Millions of French capitalist money swelled Hitler's cof­ gr1m drama whose first act was laid in 1933. fers and helped produce the first requisite for France's col­ lapse: the establishment in its traditional imperialist rival of The so-called "Battle of France" was, from the view­ a powe.rful ~egime, ~h.ich took the greatest factory in Europe, point of history, a mere mopping-up operation. French dem­ galvanIzed Its despaIrmg youth, rationalized its chaotic econ­ ocracy had already lost the war in three decisive battles. Their omy on an outright war basis, and aimed it straight at the dates: ]933, 1936, 1938. The respective battle-grounds: Ger­ heart of the gorged victors of Versailles. Germany, on the eve many; Spain and France; France itself. Principal organizer of. thi~ war, was.a nation spark-plugged by a broad-based of the defeats: democratic capitalism. Principal tool: Stal­ mmonty, d~namlc an~ fanatical, plus a majority which, inism. though certamly not actIvely for Hitler at all, negatively sup­ The Genesis of Hitler's Combat Troops ported his war with the hopeless thought: "We lost the last It is primarily as an eye-witness reporter that I write, an war and starved for 20 years; what will happen to us if we eye-witness to events in France since 1936. -But to make you lose this one?" The revolution lost inside Germany, it was understand the German troops I saw, I must underline here not the ghost of Weima~ which could overthrow Hitler; there the importance of the first battle in which French democracy was ~othing capable of stopping Nazism except genuine re­ was defeated-more accurately-helped to destroy itself: the volutIon sweeping back from the neighboring countries. rise of Hitler to power. The Weimar Republic was built on the bodies of the The World Alliance Against Spain slaughtered revolutionists of 1919. It was an economic mon­ That revolution was not lacking. The years 1936-1937 strosity, strangled by Versailles, riven with internal contra­ saw the turning-point of an era. They were like a mountain dictions, incapable of viability or genuine con.solidation. By range ~ff .whic~ the rains of history co~ld roll, by the slightest 1933 it had reached its final crisis. Socialism or fascism must of deVIatIOns m events, down one SIde to world socialism, take its place. The German capitalists got solidly behind Hit­ down the other to the present imperialist blood-bath and ler. And what were the French and British democracies doing social chaos. about it? They were helping Hitler take over. Fact: read the In France, not only were the factories almost universally books, read the newspapers of the time. No prating about occupied, but over many of them flew the red flag, and fac­ Hdemocracy" then; no, the danger then was Bolshevism and tory committees, the embryos of soviets, were in many a fac­ the British and French governments were secretly behind Hit­ tory in real if not titular control. Blum's Popular Front ler as a bulwark between the socialist revolution and their government tried its skillful best to hold the revolutionary own gorged regimes. workers back, to save democratic capitalism for its masters. The outside help of the French and British governments But it took the Stalinist leader, Thorez, to utter at that mo­ could not alone have put Hitler in power. The way was paved ment the greatest fink slogan in all history: "Comrades, com­ for Hitler by the Socialist and Communist Parties of Ger- rades, we must-know how to call off a'strikel" Page 80 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941

But even more important for France than France itself at ist victory as long as the Loyalists remained capitalist. But that ~oment was Spain. The workers and peasants of Spain all without exception primarily wanted a defeat of revolt). had rIsen, had wrested arms from the half-traitorous Popular ti")n; and whether they worked on the Franco side in opc:~ Fr~>nt government which had let the military-fascist con­ attack, or on the Loyalist side with slander and assassination, spIracy grow to open uprising. The fascists were exterminated it was the Spanish revolution they considered the primary in practically all Northern and Eastern Spain, and the work­ enemy, with Franco secondary. ers were advancing through Aragon. Real power was in the The heroism of the Spanish proletatriat is now historic. hands of the workers' and peasants' committees, which seized Openly attacked by its declared enemies, secretly sapped of, and administered the factories, and distributed and organized morale by its pretended friel}rls, and misled by its own the land-a stage fully reached in advanced industrial Cata­ cowardly leaders, Socialist, anarchist, and Poumist alike, it lonia, i'and rapidly being reached in the rest of Spain. held off this concerted world attack month after month, giv­ Franco had behind him only unwilling conscript Spanish ing way inch by inch, till the bloody Stalino-capitalist repres­ troops, ready for revolt at any really encouraging chance of sion of the 1937 May Days in Barcelona gave the final death success, and the Moors. As for the latter, a Fourth Interna­ blow to the Spanish revolution and guaranteed the eventual tionalist arrived back from meetings with the principal chief­ victory of Franco. From then on, Spain was doomed. It was tains of Spanish Morocco, with an agreement to the effect not to restore the 1931-1936 misery under Azana and Lerroux that, if the Popular Front government would give Morocco that the workers of Barcelona had attacked machine-gun­ autonomy, they would pull their tribesmen away from Fran­ guarded buildings with sticks and one pearl-handled revolver, co. But the Stalino-bourgeois Madrid government quashed the or that the Madrid proletariat had made every house a fort­ project, refused to sign the treaty, reaffirmed Spanish capital­ ress. Slowly but surely Spain collapsed. ism's imperialist rights in Morocco, and definitely lost the Almost holding their breaths with fear, the French demo­ M.oors to Franco. cratic capitalists had meanwhile been cautiously and skill­ I talian and German aid still consisted only of a few fully counter-attacking in France against the Spring trade planes, a few technicians, its weight not yet determinant and union gains. Once, their "Socialist" and Stalinist lackeys had critical. World capitalism was in a genuine panic. I ts leaders persuaded the workers out of the occupied factories, and held knew that if the Spanish revolution took the next step, the them back from renewing the struggle, the capitalists started seizure of state power, they bad to intervene. Yet they knew nibbling away at the gains of the revolutionary strikes. Time it would be suicidal. Only France was contiguous and pre­ and time again during late 1936 and early 1937, the bosses pared. But Blum, "even with Thorez's backing dared not at·, had to give way on this or that sector as the workers,filled tempt to send mobilized French workers, filled with revolu­ with a profoundly correct instinct, pushed aside the restrain­ tionary fervor by the partial victories already won by workers' ing hands of their traitorous leadership and defended their solidarity at home, against their Spanish brothers. Had Blum gains with militant sit-down strikes. But bit by bit, the bosses done-- that it would have been the Spanish revolution that worked their way back, chiseling on contracts, wriggling out spread' through France instead of French military interven­ of agreements, and always calling on the Popular Front lead­ tion that, smashed the Spanish revolution. And that event ers to check the workers; meanwhile, on the legislative front, would have changed history. After that, it would have been passing increasingly repressive laws (the Socialists and Stal­ impossible to check: no frontiers, no Gestapo, no GPU, could inists voted 'em, all), and finally establishing compulsory ar­ have kept that revolution~ry wave from spreading over Hit­ bitration, outlawIng strikes. By the end of 1937 French labor ler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. saw gain a#er;gain lost, it knew not how; puzzled at how it Capitalism and its Stalinist ally moved fast but delicate;. llad been tricked; dis~o.utaged and beginning to grow cynical. ly, like a man trying to rush a blazing keg out of a room ~ull And thus was lost the second, battle, with the defeat of of loose dynamite. They divided, the tasks with the skill an4 the only force that cQuld have beaienHitler, beaten him from wordless cooperation of desperation. Roosevelt, with almost within by an uprising of a revivified German labor movement panic haste, slapped a Hneutnility" act on arms to keep them encouraged by the victory of socialism in two n~ighboring from the Spanish people. The French Popular Front govern­ countries. . ment invented the skillful trick of Hnon-intervention," which Anti~Labor kept real help from the Loyalist side, while allowing Italian The Laws of 1938 ·1938 gave the final death blow to any hope that France and German violations to get by with only high-sounding would be able to defend herself. With every passing month, moral protests., Germany and Italy threw every ounce of under the vicious drive of· Daladier (the same Daladier who weight behind France. had' walked with clenched fist while Stalinist cheer-leaders Trickiest job of all was entrusted to Sfalin, anxious at shouted "Daladier to power!" in the 1936 elections), the work­ that moment to prove his utility to democratic capitalism: ers were driven back, angry and confused, the Stalinist mis­ that of using the prestige of the October revolution as a cover leaders pleading with them to accept all because of the Fran­ to shore up the tottering capitalist government of Loyalist co-Soviet pact and the "defense of democracy against fascism," Spain against the revolution, to build up, quickly ,an anti­ On July 11, 1938 the government promulgated a law revolutionary "Communist" party out of the backward Span­ called L'Organiration de la Nation en Temps de Guerre* that ish middle' class, to slander the revolution itself as the "fif~h would, on the outbreak of hostilities, convert France into a .column" and finally, in the terrible days of May, 1937, III

Barceldna, to smash the revolution by outright military re- III An American newspaperman, for whom I occasionally did pression. some part-time work, cauld scarcely believe his eyes when he There never was a more striking example of the dialectic read this book-length law through. Recognizing its immense im­ interrelation of imperialist rivalries and cooperation in crisis. portance, he tried to publicize it as one of the most impOrtant The rival imperialisms and Stalinism were all struggling and news events of the year. His paper never even mentioned it. He squabbling among themselves, yet they all had on.e clear goal thought it was mere ignorance on its part; a Marxist could tell in common. Germany and Italy wanted an outnght Franco him that it was part of the conspiracy of silence of the capitalist victory; France, England, and the Kremlin preferred a Loyal- "democracies." March 1941 FOURTH .INTERNATIONAL Page 81 totalitarian nation. It was the most amazing law ever voted IITotalitarianism on the Cheapll in a so-called democracy. But international attention was care­ One way of characterizing this legislation is that in it fully distracted from it. the French ruling class, with typical thriftiness, tried what This law-known as the Law of July II-made every may be called "totalitarianism on the cheap." French worker an industrial serf. It "requisitioned"-the I t was theoretically possible for French capitalism to way a government might requisition a mule or an automobile rally the workers and peasants around itself sufficiently to -all men 18 years or over; it also requisitioned en-bloc in the make a stand against Germany by converting democracy from factories all women and children of whatever age. "Requi­ a blah-blah word used in Bastille Day oratory to something sitioning" meant that a worker could not change his employ­ real and tangible, in the hard cold cash of workers' salaries ment, or be absent from it, or late to it, without penalties of and farmers' subsidies, in the no less real and important in­ from six months to five years imprisonment; that his wage was crease in civil liberties and power of the people to keep gen­ frozen for the duration of hostilities (with the exception of uine control over the government. But in practice that would niggardly Hspeed-up" bonuses) no matter what change there have meant democratically sharing-in one case, its wealth; was in the cost of living (the government promised to freeze in the other, its power-with its fellow citizens. French capital­ prices, too; but of course they rose 50 to 100 per cent by ism was not only unwilling, it was incapable, of doing either. Spring); and his wage was frozen, not at what he was then \Vith its increasing economic degeneration, its diminishing re­ getting, but at the previous five-year average-i.e., from 1934 turns, its insoluble crises, French capitalism couldn't afford on, before the 1936 wage-gains-producing immediate wage- to share wealth; indeed, in order to survive at all, it was cuts. forced to an increasing extent to take back what few gains The law also provided that the government might take the French masses had won from it. Nor, after the lesson of over factories if the bosses didn't run them to the govern­ 1936, did it dare permit any increase of political democracy ment's liking. The state in such cases guaranteed a return on which, every time it started genuinely to operate, showed that car :tal equal at least to standard war-loan interest-rat~s plus it led straight toward a revolution which would throw off the Lctory-owners' estimate of obsolescence. In a word, If you French nation's back the strangling incubus of outdated were such an incompetent boss that you couldn't make enough capitalism and lead it on to socialism. profit the government did it for you. And of course there was The other alternative was fascism. American workers a lon~ procedure of protest open to the boss, while only jail should clear their minds of a dangerous confusion (created by was open for the protesting worker. As any Amencan worker the Stalinists during their Popular Front period) between ~an guess, requisitions of factories when necessary were car­ fascism and classic reaction. Classic reaction, as in Czarist ried out very amiably by adjustment; requisition of workers Russia or Petain France, depends primarily on straight mer­ was enfo'rced with savage rigor. cenary police; fascism depends primarily on a genuine mass­ Supplementary legislation added to the basic law, among base of convinced and often fanatical partisans. There has, other things, the following: for example, been considerable misunderstanding about the To carryon any conversation, ~~e? pri~ately, whi~h did role of Colonel de la Rocque and his Croix-de-Feu~ later the not actively support the war, or cntlclzed Its prosecutIon or Parti Social Francais. The Croix-de-Feu resembled, among the war-laws, was ttt'enir propos defaitistes"-a "crime" pun­ comparable German parties, not Hitler's National-Socialists, ishable by anything from one week's imprison~ent to d~ath­ but Hugenberg's Nationalists. The Croix-de-Feu had no de­ the usual sentence was two years. The operatIon of thIS law magogic pretense of anti-capitalism, no fake pro-labor policies was particularly foul: while the real Hitlerian.s, the. real to bind hopeless masses and desperate youth to their cause; fifth-columnists, discussed the advantage~ of a HItler vIct?ry and, representing only a purely negative petty-bourgeois anti­ over their champagne in elegant salons .m complete sec~~Ity, proletarianism, it fell to pieces at the first serious test. Gen­ any trade-unionist who grumbled. abo~t mtol.e~able condItIons uine French fascism was represented by the Parti Populaire in a cafe was whisked off by polIce-spIes to JaIl. Francais of the Communist renegade Jacques Doriot. In the pre-war period it got little support from the internally warring Overtime pay was practically abolished by means of a and short-sighted French capitalists. Because fascism also vicious kick-back war-tax, working hours were increased from costs capitalism a-plenty. To date there is no example of its 40 to 72 and up per week, seniority was wiped out, .speed-ups being simply imposed from above. It rises from below, sup­ became so intolerable that, for exampl~, a good thIrd of the ported from above; and its basic mass appeal is that it is re­ Hispano-Suiza airplane motors were reJe~ts: and eve.ry hard­ volutionary and anti-capitalist. I ts real purpose of course is to won labor right was abolished. As StalImsts .lost !nfluence preserve capitalism (big money capitalism) at all costs; for ong the French workers and genuine revolutIOnanes began which purpose it milks far-sighted capitalists of as much ::take their places, the "democrats',', drop~ed th~ mask of ~he money as is needed to maintain its plug-uglies, bully-boys, ex­ classic definition of high-treason, collUSIOn WIth a fo~eIgn servicemen, and street gangsters during the struggle for power, wer" (in this case, Soviet Russia), and came out WIth a and its immense apparatus of administration and repression POked declaration that any attempt to dissuade the army or once it has consolidated fascist-capitalist power. Beyond this, ~~e rear from an all-out prosecution of the present war was in order to retain some degree of popular support in a positive high treason, punishable by death. . way (the concentration camps take care of the negative side), In addition to these measures, and to a total suppreSSIon fascism has to divert sums into flashy workers' housing and of all free speech and discussion, and a newspaper censor­ similar projects, into job-security schemes and other paternal­ ship against which even the re.actionary ne~s~apers protested, isms. It costs money. there was another weapon agamst trade u~lOmsts: t~ny wor~er French capitalism either wouldn't or couldn't pay. One of liable to military service who had bee~ gIVe~ an a~fectat'tOn fascism's historic roles is "protecting capitalism from itself," speciale" in a factory because his techmcal skIll ,,:as IT~epla~e­ by "lessening the anarchy of production and distribution," etc. able in the industrial effort, needed only to raIse hIS VOIce (What this phrase really proved to mean in Germany was once in complaint against the terrible wages and hours and Hprotecting" big monopoly capitalism against small "inde­ speed-up to find himself immediately transferred back to a pendent" capitalism: the latter naturally went to the wall in combat unit and assigned a sacrificial advance patrol post. Page 82 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 194)

!,h~ "rationa!i~at!?n.") .French capitalism, despite the famous Later the bourgeois journalist summed our reports up as ~Ixty FamIlIes, despIte some mammoth corporations, des­ follows: "True, there are contributory causes-treason, wretch­ pIte the. u~~.al inte~I~~king directorates and the super-control ed staff .work, graft-ridden preparation, lack of support by of cert~m mdustnal banks, was much more atomized, much the Enghsh (who are saving their own skins), new technical less umfied, much more riven with internal rivalries, than was methods on .the Germans' part; but all those things are second­ 1932 Germany. For instance, "colonial" banks and combines ary: The ~nmary reaS?n France is collapsing to Germany lies whose interests lay in the empire's colonies, and whose out~ baSIcally I~ one questIon and its answer. The plain ordinary look was international, clashed seriously with those cartels French potlu has said to himself: 'Life under Hitler would and trusts whose interests were wholly within France itself' probably be worse than life under ReynaUd. But would it be light conversion industry equally constantly clashed with e1tou~b worse so t~~t tha"b difference is worth dying forr heayy ~apit~l-~oods industry. Uncertain, short-sighted French What s the answer? He returned to the wall map in his of­ capI.tahsn: dIVId~d its support among dozens of groups, fascist, fice, ?Iotioned u~ close, pointed to the Dunkirk pocket, wiped ~emi-fascI~t, natIOnalist, straight reactionary, parliamentary, out m the vanous-colored crayons representing successive' extra-parlIamentary--even the Second Internationalist "so­ days, and to the colored-crayon tongues lapping like angry cialists" when circumstances required. flames across the Aisne and Somme toward Paris. "There's, Unwilling and unable to pay the .t-stiff price of either ex­ the poilu's answer," he said, "an answer in geography." panding democracy or genuine fascism as a means of getting some sort of mass base among its more and more indignant * * * people, French capitalism tried "totalitarianism on the cheap." Mean~hile, in the circles of the bourgeoisie, there was French capitalism tried to get the totalitarian advantages of profound dIsunity. fascism without paying the corresponding cost that German capitalism had proved necessary. It would make no sacrifice­ The Impasse of the Bourgeoisie either that of subsidizing a mass-movement, or that of sub­ "Totalitarianism on the cheap" was the program of the jecting itself to a rationalizing economic discipline. I t simply united bourgeoisie. They were united, too-together with put what it liked of German totalitarianism into the Law of the~r ¥:socialist" lackeys-in wor~ing tirelessly to bring about July." theIr Ideal war-to turn expandmg Germany eastward in an On November 3D, 1938, the CGT (General Confederation exhausting war which, they fondly hoped, might at one stroke of Labor), under desperate pressure from below, half-hearted­ exhaust their imperialist rival and wipe out socialism in ly called for a general strike to defend the last vestiges of the Russia. 1936 gains. It is difficult to say which was the more criminal: But if that could not be done, the French bourgeoisie the way in which the strike was announced and argued for divided sharply on a further course. and against so far in advance that the bourgeoisie could A broad sector of French capitalism, politically rep­ liesurely prepare to exterminate it; or the miserable lack of resented by such men as Georges Bonnet, Flandin and Lavat preparation of the strike itself. Daladier saw his chance and favored voluntarily coming to terms with Germany. struck. Rarely has any strike been repressed with such refined Concluding that France had proved too weak in economic savagery, followed by such vicious reprisals. The strike was potential to be a first-rate power, they proposed to accept the an almost total failure; and the subsequent reprisals against reduction of France to a secondary position, even if it meant workers, government employees, even school teachers-all becoming a satellite of the Axis. They preferred to do that strikers were rehired only individually, with all seniority lost, peacefully rather than risk disaster at the coat-tails of Brit­ and every militant weeded out even if it halved factory pro­ ish imperialism. One need hardly add that these pessimistic duction-really broke the back of the French labor movement. realists were neither more nor less "patriots" than the opposite Daladier proudly announced that France was at last "one wing, led by ReynaUd and Blum, of the pro-English tendency. united nation." I t was one of the silliest statements ever made Both groups equally feared revolution at home and abroad. by any political figure. The bourgeois press of the world ac­ They differed on the remedy. claimed it. By vicious repression and discouraged apathy This sharp difference on policy toward Germany led, France was united into a hollow rotted facade, ready to fall after war broke out, not to unity but to divided counsels, in­ apart at a push. Thus French "democracy" had itself added decision, immobilization, escapism. the filial touch: after aiding its mortal enemy to power, after Indecision ran from passive drifting to outright treach­ helping smash the only force that could have swept that ery. The highly placed traitors in France were traitors not enemy from power, it so smashed all real democracy within because they preferred some foreign power (in this case Ger­ itself that in its hour of need it had no convinced defenders. many) but because they preferred to smash the republic com­ The writer was one of six investigators sent through the pletely. Said one of them to the writer, 'in a smart evening working-class districts of Paris by a bourgeois journalist, to salon in the Faubourg Saint-Germain: "We've got the right "take the public pulse," "get the tone of French morale," in war, but the wrong enemy. It's socialism we should be fight­ the winter of 1939-1940. Some others, we understood, were ing against." And this man had one of the most responsible interviewing soldiers on leave from the front. Considering non-ministerial posts in the French government. the extraordinary political range of the investigators involved, There was an even more extraordinary example of this our reports were amazingly unanimous. One of the other in­ feeling shown at the front itself. In the last war, there was vestigators-a bourgeois democrat-woefully summed it up revolutionary fraternization between the opposing privates, despite furious attempts to prevent it by the officers. In this as follows: 0 "B y God, if a German column rolled this after­ noon through the Porte de Clichy, ten per cent of the Paris war the writer met a lieutenant who quietly boasted of fra­ populace would run home to secure a few valuables; the other ternization between German and French officers in his 90 per cent would stand with its hands in its pockets watch­ sector of the front during the Sitzkrieg. Once a week they ing the Germans and saying: 'Ah, merde alors. qu' iIs vont dined together, and drank champagne toasts to an immediate vite, ces salauds-Ia!' (Cripes, don't those bastards move peace followed by an alliance together in a war against the fast!)." We all looked at one another and slowly nodded agree- Soviet Union. There were laws about treason. Was a single one of these men~ March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 83

people ever arrested by the government? Of course not. They during the war, the moment the newspaper revolt in the late were sacred cows, untouchable. Because they were linked by winter had somewhat eased the censorship, such liberal week­ every tie of famly, of finance, with the other, the pro-war fac­ lies as La Lumiere returned to the attack with facts and dates tion. Their differences were no more than family disagree­ and figures. La Lumiere promptly caught hell from the censor­ ments. Jean would say, "Cousin Paul is mistaken. I worry ship: a defense of these patriotic figures was made; the Min­ about his ideas. Still, he made several good points." Within istry of the Interior and its police of course never raised a such circles, criticism of the "war against Hitlerism" was per­ finger-they were too busy jailing trade-union militants. Some missible, excusable. But let Jacques Docques, turret-lathe days after the German occupation of Paris, this writer met the operator in the De Woitinne Aviation \Vorks, say that he bourgeois journalist mentioned above, whose offices were in wouldn't work the fourth consecutive Sunday, and he was that building; he had, in his surprised innocence, an indignant damned if he saw what this war was gaining for the French' little story to tell. workers anyway, and the lofty Jeans and Pauls fused instant­ The afternoon of the occupation, he had been watching. ly together in denunciation of him as a spy, a fifth-columnist, the German troops marching up the Champs-Elysees, when a traitor, a Red-and away he went to four years in jail. he heard a hail from the balcony above his, that of Le Grand On the scale of general policy, this tendency was illustrat­ Pavois. Invited up, in that lonely and deserted building, for ed spectacularly during the Soviet-Finnish War. The main a drink, he found three members of the club (the others had war was all but forgotten by the French government press, instantly left Paris when it was announced the city would be which positively howled for intervention against the USSR. defended house-by-house, street-by-street, but were shortly on For a moment the French bourgeoisie was temporarily united; their way back, now that Paris had been declared an open Alpine troops were rushed. to Scotland, ready to sail the mo­ town and had quietly fallen). The three representative mem­ ment Norway and Sweden gave permission, among the salon­ bers were in the best of spirits: the Nazi flag was flying from nards there was gossip of projects for making peace with Ger­ the staff, an honorary membership had been dispatched to the many in order to turn all force against Russia. And if Daladier General commanding the troops of occupation, and they'd did not carry out the project, it was not for lack of will but found the barman again. "Tragic, tragic," said the Club's that, in the face of Norwegian and Swedish resistance and Ger­ secretary, "a terrible defeat." The journalist agreed. "But es­ many's apparent unwillingness to cooperate, it was beyond sentially," the secretary continued, meditatively sipping his his power. whiskey-soda, "the best thing that ever happened to France. If these gentry had meant one word of what they'd said Now we're rid of Parliament; now we're rid of these damned about a democratic crusade to stop Hitlerism, they'd have re­ cabinets; now we can settle our accounts with the Jews and treated to North Africa, they'd have retreated to the south­ with these damned Red workmen. The war was a mistake and west corner of Hell, and kept on fighting. But that would a disaster; but it has ended as a blessing in disguise." have meant abandoning their noldings in France, fighting As the journalist told me this, I thought of the concentr'a­ on like the common poilus to whom they had preached their tion camps all through southwestern France, where there lay crusade. Naturally, of course, by their very class nature, they on lice-ridden straw hundreds of thousands of anti-fascist did nothing of the sort: they came to terms as quickly as pos­ fighters-French labor militants, Spanish Loyalists, anti­ sible with the invader, while they still had economic bargain­ l\lussolini Italians, German anti-Nazis-imprisoned by ing-points, in order to retain the jackal's share of the power French "democracy" for wanting to fight against Hitlerism too to continue to exploit the people of France. hard; lying there waiting, waiting, under unremitting guard In a series of penthouses atop the National City Bank of (there were always enough gardes mobiles for that, however New York Building on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees are strained the fighting lines might be) until the German wave the elegant quarters of one of Paris's smartest clubs, a haunt passed over them, and they were sorted out to be sent hack­ of French and international business leaders-the Grand to Lipari, to Hitler's headsmen, to Franco's garrotters. Pavois. For years it had been denounced in the liberal and That was the way democracy was defended against labor press as the nastiest nest of H itlerites in all Paris. Even fascism.

From the Arsenal of Marxism II The Tactics of the United Front By LEON TROTSKY The problem of the united front is today ('nee more a burn­ Committee of the Communist International which convened late ing question. As in all other questions, the great documents of in February and extended into March. The immediate occasion Lenin and Trotsky's Communist International have been long for these theses was the situation in the Communist Party of buried by the Stalinist bureaucracy. France which is described in the second part of the theses. They The following were the first theses on the united front adopt­ became the basis for the general theses on the united front ed by the Communist International. Trotsky wrote them on adopted by the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, March 2, 1922, during the enlarged plenum of, the Executive which Trotsky also wrote. Although the document is dated in Page 84 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March. 194)

certain parts, in the main it is still the most valuable treatise izations which by virtue of their still powerful traditions con­ on the united :front which the revolutionary movement possesses. tinue to play the decisive role. Apart from a defective translation in the early issues of In­ Similarly the problem of the united front does not arise' precorr (International Press COITespondence) it has never been published in English befOTe. This is. a new translation. in countries where-like in Bulgaria, for example-the Com-· munist Party is the sole leading organization of the toiling masses. I. General Considerations on the But wherever the Communist Party already constitutes a United Front big, political organized force, but not the decisive magnitude I. The task of the Communist Party is to lead the prole­ -wherever the party embraces organizationally, let us say,. tarian revolution. In order to summon the proletariat for the one-fourth, one-third, or even a larger proportion of the or­ direct conquest of power and to achieve the latter, the Com­ gaI?ized proletarian vanguard--it is 'confronted with the munist Party must base itself on the overwhelming majority question of the united front in all its acuteness. of the working class. If the party embraces a thi~d or one-half of the prole­ So long as it does not hold this majority, the party must tarian vanguard, then the remaining half or two-thirds are' fight to win it. organized by the reformists or centrists. It is absolutely self­ The party can do so only if it is an absolutely independ­ evident, however, that even those workers who still support ent organization with a clear program and with strict in­ the reformists and the centrists are vitally concerned in main­ ternal discipline. That is why the party had to break ideologi­ taining the highest material standards of living and the great­ cally and organizationally with the reformists and the cent­ est possible freedom for struggle. We must consequently so rists who do not strive for the proletarian revolution, who devise our tactic as to prevent the Communist Party, which have neither the capacity nor the desire to prepare the masses wiII on the morrow embrace all the three thirds of the working for revolution, and who by their entire conduct thwart this class, from turning into-and all the more so, from actually work. being-an organizational obstacle in the way of the present Any members of the Communist Party who bemoan the struggle of the proletariat. split with the centrists in the name of "unity of forces" or Still more, the party must assume the initiative in secur­ "unity of front," thereby demonstrate that they do not un­ ing unity in this current struggle. Only in this way will the derstand the A.B.C. of Communism, and that they themselves party draw closer to those two-thirds which. do not as yet fol­ happen to be in the Communist Party only by accident. low its leadership, which do not as yet trust it because they do not understand it. Only in this way can the party win them 2. After assuring itself complete independence and ideo­ over. logical homogeneity of its ranks, the Communist Party fights I f the Communist Party had not broken drastically and for influence over the majority of the working class. This irrevocably with the Social-Democrats, it would not have be­ struggle can assume a swifter or more protracted character come the party of proletarian revolution. It could not have depending upon objective circumstances and the expediency taken the first serious step on the road to revolution. It would of the tactic pursued. have forever remained a parliamentary safety-valve under the But it is quite self-evident that the class life of the pro­ bourgeois state. letariat is not suspended during this preparatory period prior Whoever does not understand this does not know the to the revolution. Clashes with industrialists, with the bour­ first letter of the A.B.C. of Communism. geoisie, with the state power, on the initiative of one side or If the other, run their due course. 4. the Communist Party did not seek for organizational avenues to the end that at every given moment joint, co­ In these clashes, insofar as they involve the living inter­ ordinated actions between the Communists and the non­ est$ of the entire working class, or its majority, or this or that Communist (including the Social-Democratic) working mass­ section, the working masses feel the need of unity in action­ es were made possible, it would have thereby laid bare its of unity ~n resisting the onslaught of capitalism or unity in own incapacity to win over---on the basis of mass actions­ taking the offensive against the latter. Any party which the majority of the working class. It would degenerate into mechanically counterposes itself to this need of the working a society for Communist propaganda but never develop into class for unity in action will unfailingly be condemned in the a party for the conquest of power. minds of workers. It is not enough to have a sword, one must give it an Consequently, the question of the united front is not at edge; it is not enough to give it an edge, one must know how all, both in point of origin and essence, a question of mutual to use it. relations between the eommunist parliamentary fraction and After separating the Communists from reformists it is that of the Socialists; or between the central committees of not enough to' fuse the Communists together by means of the two parties, or between L'Humanite and Le Populaire. organizational discipline; it is necessary that this organization The problem of the united front-despite the tact that a split should learn how to guide all the collective activities of the is inevi'bable in this epoch between th~ political organitations proletariat in all spheres of its living struggle. basing themselves on the .working class-grows out of the ur­ This is the second letter of the A.B.C. of Communism. gent need to secure for the working class the possibility of a united front in the struggle against capitalism. Reformist Leaders in the United Front For those who do not understand this task, the party is 5. Does the united front extend only to the working only a propaganda society and not an organization fqr mass masses or does it also include the opportunist leaders? . action. The very posing of this question is the product of mis­ 3. In cases where the Communist Party still remains an understanding. organization of numerically insignificant minorities, the ques­ If We could simply unite the working masses around our tion of its conduct on the mass-struggle front does not assume own banner or around our practical current slogans, and skip a decisive practical-organizational significance. In such condi­ over reformist organizations, whether party or trade union, tions, mass actions remain under the leadership of old organ- that would of course, be the best thing in the world. But then March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 85- the very question of the united front would not exist in its there somebody in our own ranks may take fright at it. But present form. as regards the broad working masses-even those who do not The question arises from this, that certain and very im­ follow us and who do not as yet understand our goals but portant sections of the working class belong to reformist who do see two or three labor organizations leading a parallel organizations or support them. Their present experience is existence-these masses will draw from our conduct the fol­ still insuffis:ient to enable them to leave the reformist organ­ lo~in~ conclusion: that ~e.spite the split We are doing every­ izations and to join us. I t may be precisely after engaging in thmg In our power to faCIlItate for the masses unity in action. those mass activities which are on the order of the day, that 7. The policy aimed to secure the united front does not of a major change will take place in this connection. That is course include in itself guarantees that actual unity in action just what we are striving for. But that is not how matters will be obtained in all instances. On the contrary, in many still stand at present. Today the organized portion of the c~ses and pe~haps even in the majority of cases, organiza­ working class is broken up into three formations. tIonal agreement will be only half attained or perhaps not One of them, the Communist, strives toward the social at all. But it is necessary that the struggling mas£es should revolution and precisely because 01 this supports concurrently always be given the possibility of convincing themseives that every movement, however partial, of the toilers against the the non-achievement of unity in action was not due to our exploiters and against the bourgeois state. formal irreconcilability but to the lack of real will to struggle Another grouping, the reformist, strives toward concilia­ on the part of the reformists. tion with the bourgeoisie. But in order not to lose their in­ In entering into agreements with other organizations, we fluence over the workers, they are compelled, against the in­ naturally assume a certain discipline in action. But this nermost desires of the leaders, to support the partial move­ discipline cannot be absolute in character. In the event that ments of the exploited against the exploiters. the reformists begin putting brakes on the struggle to the Finally, there is the third grouping, the centrists, who obvious detriment of the movement and act counter to the constantly vacillate between the other two, and who do not situation and the moods of the masses, we as an independent have an independent significance. organization always reserve the right to lead the struggle to The circumstances thus make wholly possible joint ac­ the end, and this without our temporary semi-allies. tions on a whole series of vital questions between the workers This may give rise to a new sharpening of the struggle united in these three respective organizations and the unor­ between us and the reformists. But it will no longer involve ganized masses adhering to them. a simple repetition of one and the same set of ideas in a shut­ The Communists, as has been said, not only must not in circle but will signify-provided our tactic is correct-the oppose such actions but, on the contrary, must assume the extension of our influence over new, fresh groups of the initiative for them: precisely for the reason that the greater proletariat. is the mass drawn into the movement, the higher its self­ 8. It is possible to see in the policy a rapprochement confidence rises, all the more self-confident will that mass with the reformists only from the standpoint of a j'ournalist movement be and all the more resolutely will it be capable who thiriks that he removes himself from reformism by ritual­ of marching forward, however modest may be the initial slo­ istically criticising it without ever leaving his editorial office gans of struggle. And this means that the growth of the mass dnd who is fearful of clashing With. the reformists before the aspects of the movement revolutionizes it, and creates much eyes of the working masses and giving the latter an oppor­ more favorable conditions for slogans, methods of struggle tunity to appraise the Communist and the r.eformist on the and, in general, the leading role of the Communist Party. equal plane of the mass struggle. In this seeming revolution­ The reformists fear the potential revolutionary spirit of ary fear of "rapprochement" there lurks in essence a, political the mass movement; their beloved arena is: the parliamentary passivity which seeks to perpetuate an order of things wherein tribune, the offices of trade unions, arbitration courts, Minis­ the Communists and reformists each have their own rigidly terial ante-chambers. demarcated spheres of influence, their own audiences at meet­ On the contrary, we are, apart from all other considera­ ings, their own press, and all this together creates an illusion tions, interested in dragging the reformists from their havens of serious political struggle. and placing them alongside of ourselves before the eyes of 9. We broke with the reformists and centrists in order the struggling masses. With a correct tactic we stand only to to obtain complete freedom in criticising perfidy, betrayal, gain. A Communist who doubts or fears this resembles a indecision and the half-way spirit in the labor movement swimmer who has approved the theses on the best method of For this reason any sort of organizational agreement which swimming, but dares not take the risk of plunging into the restricts our freedom of criticism and agitation is absolutely water. inacceptable to us. We participate in a united front but do 6. Unity of front consequently presupposes our readi­ not for a single moment become dissolved in it. We function ness, within certain limits and on specific questions, to cor­ in the united front as an independent detachment. It is pre­ relate in practice our actions with those of reformist organ­ cisely in the course of struggle that broad masses must learn izations, to the extent to which the latter still express today from experience that we fight better than the others, that we the will of important sections of the embattled proletariat. see more clearly than the others, that we are more audacious But, after all, didn't we split with them? Yes, because we and resolute. In this way, we shall bring closer the hour disagree with them on fundamental questions .of the working of the united revolutionary front under the undisputed Com­ class movement. munist leadership. And yet we seek agreements with them? Yes, in all those cases when the masses that follow them are ready to engage II. Groupings in the French in joint struggle together with the masses that follow us and Labor Movement when they, the reformists, are to a lesser or greater degree 10. If we propose to analyze the question of the united compelled to become an organ of this struggle. front in its application to France, without leaving the ground . But won't they say that after we split with them we still of the foregoing theses, which flow from the entire policy of need them? Yes, their blabbermouths can say this. Here and the Communist International, then we must ask ourselves: Do Page 86 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 194r we have in France a situation in which the Communists rep­ old Socialist· Party, whereupon the opportunists added to all resent: from the st~n?point of practical action, an insignificant their other political qualifications, also the quality of Hdissid­ magmtude (quanttte negligeable)? Or do they, on the con­ ents," i.e. splitters. Our French party made use of this in the trary, embrace the overwhelming majority of organized work­ sense that it has implanted on the social reformist organiza­ ers? ~r do they occupy an in-between position? Are they tion the designation of dissidents (splitters), thus bringing sufficIently strong to make their participation in the mass to the forefront the fact that the reformists are disrupters of movement of major importance, but are they insufficiently unity in action and unity of organization. strong to concentrate the undisputed leadership in their own 14. In the field of the trade union movement, the revolu­ hands? tionary wing and above all the Communists cannot hide It is quite incontestable that we have before us precisely either from themselves or their adversaries how profound are the third case in France. the differences between Moscow and Amsterdam-differences II. In the party sphere the predominance of the Com­ \vhich by no means are simple shadings within the ranks of the munists over the reformists is overwhelming. The Com­ labor movement but are a reflection of the profoundest con­ munist organization and the Communist press surpass by far flict which is tearing modern, society apart, namely, the con­ in numbers, richness and vitality the organization and press flict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. But, at the of the so-called Socialists. same time, the revolutionary wing, i. e. first and foremost the This overwhelming preponderance, however, far from conscious Communist elements, never sponsored, as has been secures to the French Communist Party as yet the complete said, the tactic of leaving the trade unions or of splitting the and incontestable leadership of the French proletariat, inas­ trade union organizations. Such slogans are characteristic much as the latter is still strongly under the influence of anti­ only of sectarian groupings of Hlocalists," K.A.P.D.,* certain political and anti-party tendencies and prejUdices, the arena Hlibertarian,'" anarchist grouplets in France, which never for whose operation is primarily provided by the trade unions. wielded any influence among broad working masses, which do 12. The paramount peculiarity of the French labor not aspire or strive to conquer this influence but are content movement consists in this, that the trade unions have long with small churches of their own, and with rigidly demarcated served as an integument or cover for a peCUliar, anti-parlia­ congregations. The truly revolutionary elements among the mentarian political party which bears the name, syndicalism. French syndicalists have felt instinctively that the French For, however the revolutionary syndicalists may try to de­ working class can be won on the arena of the trade union marcate themselves from politics or from the party, they can movement only by counterposing the revolutionary viewpoint never refute the fact that they themselves constitute a polit­ and the revolutionary methods to those of the reformists on ical party which seeks to base itself on trade union organiza­ the arena of mass action, while preserving at the ~ame time tions of the working class. This party has its own positive the highest possible degree of unity in action. revolutionary proletarian tendencies but also its own extreme­ 15. The system of nuclei in' trade union organizations ly negative features: the lack of a genuinely definitive pro­ adopted by the revolutionary wing signified nothing but the gram and a rounded-out organization. The organization of most natural form of struggle for ideological influence and the trade unions by no means corresponds with the organiza­ for unity of front without disrupting the unity of organ­ tion of syndicalism. In the organizational sense, the syndi­ ization. calists represent amorphous political nuclei, grafted upon the 16. Like the reformists of the Socialist Party, the re­ trade unions. formists of the trade unio'n movement took the initiative for The question is further complicated by the fact that the the split. But it was precisely the experience of the Socialist s~rndicalists like all other political groupings in the working Party that largely inspired them with the conclusion that class, have split, after the war, into two parts: the reformists time worked in favor of communism, and that it was possible who support bourgeois society and are thereby compelled to to counteract the influence of experience and time only by work hand in hand with parliamentary reformists, and the forcing a split. On the part of the ruling clique of the C.G.T. revolutionary s~ction which is seeking ways to overthrow its (Confederation of Trade Unions) we see a whole system of adversary and 'is thereby, in the person of its best elements, measures with the aim of disorganizing the left wing, of de­ moving towards communism. priving it of those rights which the trade unions afford it, It was just this urge to preserve the unity of (the class) and, finally, through open expulsion-counter to all statutes front which inspired not only the Communist but ?lso the and regulations-of formally placing it outside the trade revolutionary syndicalists with the absolutely correct tactic union organization. of struggle for the 'unity of the trade-union organization of On the other hand, we see the revolutionary wing fight­ the French proletariat. On the other hand, with the instinct ing to preserve its rights on the grounds of the democratic of bankrupts who sense that before the eyes of the working norms of workers' organizations and resisting with all its masses they cannot, in action, in struggle meet the competition might the split implanted from above by appealing to the of the revolutionary wing, Jouhaux, Merrheim and Co. have rank and file for unity of the trade union organization. taken to the path of split. The colossally important struggle 17. Every thinking French worker must be aware that now unfolding throughout the entire trade union movement when the Communists comprised one-sixth, or one-third of of France, the struggle between reformists and revolutionists, the Socialist Party, they did not attempt to split, being abso­ is for us at the same time a struggle for the unity of the lutely certain that the majority of the party would follow trade union organization and the trade union front. them in the near future. When the reformists found them­ selves reduced to one-third, they split away, nursing no hopes III. The Trade Union· Movement and the to again win over the majority of the proletarian vanguard. Every thinking French worker must be aware that when United Front the revolutionary elements were confronted with the problem 13. French Communism finds itself in an extremely fav­ of the trade union movement, they, still an insignificant mi- orable situation precisely as regards the idea of the united front. In the framework of political organization, French * The ultra-left Communists of Germany, who fOTmed their own party, Kommunistische Arbeiter Partei Deutschland. Communism has succeeded in conquering the majority of the I March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 87 nority at the time, decided it in the sense of working in com­ 19. We can, therefore, state that in relation to the most mon organizations, being certain that the experience of the important field of the labor movement-the trade unions­ struggle in conditions of the revolutionary epoch would the tactic of the united front demands that those methods by quickly impel the majority of the unionized workers to the which the struggle against Jouhaux and Co. has already been side of the revolutionary program. When the reformists, c?nducted on our side, be applied more consistently, more per­ however, perceived the growth of the revolutionary wing in SIstently and resolutely than ever before. the trade unions, they-nursing no hopes of coping with it on the basis of competition-resorted immediately to the IV. The Political Struggle and the method of expulsion and split. Unity of Front Hence flow conclusions of greatest importance: ~? On the pl.ane of the party, there is, to begin with, a First, the entire profundity of the differences which re­ very Important dIfference from trade unions in this, that flect, as has been said, the contradiction between the bour­ the preponderance of the Communist Party over the Socialist, geoisie and the proletariat, has been clarified. ?oth in point of or~anization and press, is overwhelming. It, Secondly, the hypocritical ltdemocratism" of the oppo­ IS consequently pOSSIble to assume that the Communist Party lIents of dictatorship is being exposed to the very roots, inas­ as such is capable of securing the unity of the political front much as these gentlemen are not inclined to tolerate, not only ~nd that therefore it has no impelling reasons for addressing in the framework of the state, but also in the framework of Itself to the organization of the dissidents with any sort of workers' organizations, methods of democracy. Whenever the pr~posals f?r co~crete actions. This question, if posed in a latter turn against them, they either split away themselves, strIctly busmesshke and lawful manner, based on an evalua­ like the dissidents in the party, or expel others, like the clique tion of the relationship of forces and not on verbal radicalism, of Jouhaux-Desmoulins. It is truly monstrous to suppose that must be appraised on its merits. the bourgeoisie would ever agree to permit the struggle against 21. When we take into account that the Communist Party the proletariat to come to a decision within the framework numbers 130,000 members, while the Socialists number of democracy, when even the agents of the bourgeoisie in the 30,000, the enormous' successes of the Communist idea in trade union and political organizations are opposed to solving France become apparent. However, if we take into account the questions of the labor movement on the basis of norms the relation between these figures and the numerical strength of workers' democracy which they voluntarily adopted. of the working class as a whole and the existence of reformist 18. The struggle for the unity of the trade union organ­ trade unions and anti-Communist tendencies within the revo­ ization and trade union action will remain in the future, as lutionary trade unions, then the question of the hegemony well, one of the most important tasks of the Communist Party of the Communist Party in the labor movement will confront --a struggle not only in the sense of constantly striving to us as a very difficult task, still far from solved by our numer­ unite ever larger numbers of workers around the program and ical preponderance over the dissidents. The latter may under tactic of' Communism, but also in the sense that the Commun­ c£rtain conditions prove to be a much more important coun­ ist Party-on the road towards the realization of this goal­ ter-revolutionary factor within the working class than might directly as well as through the Communists in trade unions appear were one to judge solely from the weakness of their strives in action to reduce to a minimum those obstacles which organization, and the insignificance of the circulation and the are placed before the workers' movement by a split in organ- iceological content of their organ, Le Pop·ulaire. izations. I f in spite of all our efforts to reestablish unity, the split 22. In order to evaluate a situation, it is necessary to in the C.G.T. becomes sealed in the immediate future, this give a clear accounting of how the situation unfolded. The would not at all signify that the C.G. T. Unitaire,* regardless transformation of the majority of the old Socialist Party into of whether half or more than half of the unionized workers the Communist Party came as a result of a wave of dissatis­ join it in the next period, will conduct its work by simply faction and mutiny engendered in all countries of Europe by ignoring the existence of the reformist C.G.T. Such a policy the war. The example of the Russian revolution, and the slo­ would render difficult in the extreme-if not exclude alto­ gans of the Third International seemed to indicate the way gether-the possibility of coordinated militant actions of the out. The bourgeoisie, however, was able to maintain itself proletariat, and at the same time it would make it' extremely in 1919-1920 and was able, by means of combined measures. easy for the reformist C.G.T. to play in the interests of the to establish on post-war' foundations a certain equilibrium, bourgeoisie the role of La Ligue Civique** as regards strikes, which is being undermined by the most terrible contradictions dtmonstrations, etc., and at the same time provide the reform­ and which is heading toward vast catastrophes, but which ist C.G.T. with a semblance of justification in arguing that provides relative stability for the current day, and for the the revolutionary C.G.T.U. provokes inexpedient public ac­ period immediately ahead. The Russian revolution, in sur­ tions and must bear full responsibilities for them. It is abso­ mounting the greatest difficulties and obstacles created by lutely self-evident that in all cases where circumstances permit world capitalism, has been able to achieve its socialist tasks the revolutionary C.G.T.U. will, whenever it deems necessary only gradually, only at the cost of an extraordinary strain to undertake some campaign, openly address itself to the upon all its forces. As a result-the initial flow of un­ reformist C.G.T. with concrete proposals and demands for a formed, uncritical revolutionary moods has given place concrete plan of coordinated actions, and bring to bear the unavoidably to an ebb. Only the most resolute, audacious pressure of the public opinion of l~bor and ex~ose before this and young sections of the world working class have remained public opinion each of the uncertam and evaSIve steps of the under the banner of Communism. reformists. This does not mean naturally that those broad circles Even in the event the split of the trade union organiza- of the proletariat who have been disillusioned in their hopes tion becomes sealed, the methods of struggle for .the united for immediate revolution, for swift radical transformations, front thus preserve all their meaning. etc., have wholly returned to the old pre-war positions. No, their dissatisfaction is deeper than ever before, their hatred • The trade union center of the expelled left wing unionists. of the exploiters is sharper. But, at the same time, they are ••Bourgeols strike-break.1DI organizatlon in France. Page 88 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941 politically disoriented, they do not see the paths of struggle not permit them to occupy with impunity an evasive tempo­ and therefore remain passively expectant-giving rise to the rizing position on the questions relating to the workers' move­ possibility of sharp oscillations to this or that side, depending ment, and to use platonic declarations of sympathy for the on how the situation unfolds. working class, as a cover for utilizing the patronage of the This big reservoir of the passive and the disoriented can, bourgeois oppressors. In other words, we can and must, in under a certain combination of circumstances, be widely util­ all suitable instances, propose to the dissidents a specific form ized by the dissidents against us. of joint aid to strikers, locked-out -workers, unemployed, war 23. In order to support the Communist Party, faith in invalids, etc., etc., recording before the eyes of the masses their the revolutionary cause, activity, loyalty are needed. In order response to our precise proposals, and in this way counter­ to support the dissidents, disorientation and passivity are pose them to certain sections of politically indifferent or semi­ necess;uy and sufficient. I t is absolutely natural that the revo­ indifferent masses in whom the reformists hope to find support lutionary active section of the working class should extrude under certain propitious conditions. from its ranks a much larger percentage of members of the 29. This kind of tactic is all the more important since Communist Party than the passive, disoriented section is able' the dissidents unquestionably are intimately bound up with to supply to the party of the dissidents. the reformist C.G.T. and with the latter constitute the two The same applies to the press. The elements of indiffer­ wings of the bourgeois agency in the labor movement. We entism read little.The insignificance of the circulation and con­ take the offensive both on the trade union and political fields tent of Le Populaire reflects the mood of a certain section of simultaneously against this two-fold agency, applying the the working class. The fact that the complete ascendancy of very same tactical methods. the professional intellectuals over the workers prevails in the party of the dissidents in no way runs counter to our diagnosis 30. The impeccable and agitation ally extremely per­ suasive logic of our conduct is as follows: "You, the reform­ and prognosis: Because the passive and partially disillusion~d, pa.rtially disoriented worker-masses precisely serve, especially ists of syndicalism and socialism," we say to them before the in France, as the feeding source for those political cliques eyes of the masses, uhave split the trade unions and the party composed of attorneys and journalists, reformist witch­ for the sake of ideas and methods which we consider wrong doctors and parliamentary charlatans. and criminal. We demand. that you at least refrain from plac­ 24. If we view the party organization as an active army, ing a spoke in the wheel during the partial un postponable and the unorganized mass of workers as the reserves, concrete tasks of working class struggle and that you make and if we grant that our active army is from three to four possible unity in action. In the given concrete situation we times stronger than the active army of the dissidents, then, propose such and such a program of struggle." under a certain combination of events, the reserves may tum 3 I. Similarly the indicated method could be employed out to be divided between ourselve.s and the social reformists not unsuccessfully in relation to parliamentary and municipal in a proportion much less favorable to us. activities. We say to the masses, "The dissidents, because they / do not want a revolution, have split the mass of workers. It D~nger of a New IIPacifist" Period would be insanity to count upon their aiding the proletarian 25. The idea of the UIeft bloc" is pervading the French revolution. But we are ready, inside and outside the parlia­ political atmosphere. After a new period of Poincare-ism, ment to enter into certain, practical agreements with them, '~ which constitutes an attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie provided they agree in those cases where it is necessary to to serve up a warmed-over dish of the illusions of victory to choose between the known interests of the bourgeosie and the the people, a pacifist reaction is quite probable among broad definite demands of the proletariat, to support in action the circles of bourgeois society, i.e. first and foremost, among the latter. The dissidents can be capable of such actions only if petty bourgeoisie. Hopes for universal pacification, for. an they renounce their ties with the parties of the bourgeoisie, agreement with Soviet Russia, obtaining from her on advan­ i.e., the left bloc and the bourgeois discipline." tageous conditions raw materials· and payments, decreases in I f the dissidents were capable of accepting these condi­ the burden of militarism and so on, in a word, the illusory tions, then their worker followers would be quickly absorbed program of democratic pacifism, can for a certain period be­ ty the Communist Party. But just because of this, the dissi­ come the program of a left bloc, which will come to replace dents will not agree to these conditions. In other words, to the national bloc. the clearly and precisely posed question whether they choose From the standpoint of the development of the revolu­ a bloc with the bourgeoisie or a bloc with the proletariat­ tion in France, such a change of regimes will be a step forward in the concrete and specific conditions of mass struggle-they only if the proletariat is seized very little by the illusions of will be compelled to reply that they prefer a bloc with the petty-bourgeois pacifism. bourgeoisie. Such an answer will not pass with impunity 26. Reformist-dissidents are the agency of the "left bloc'· among the proletarian reserves on whom they are counting. within the working class. Their successes will be all the greater, the less the working class as a whole is seized by the V. Internal Tasks of the Communist Party idea and practice of the united .front against the bourgeoisie. 32. The above outlined policy presupposes, naturally, Strata of workers, disoriented by the war and the tardiness of complete organizational independence, ideological clarity and revolution; may venture to support the left bloc, as a lesser revolutionary firmness of the Communist Party itself. evil, in the belief that they do not thereby risk anything at Thus, for example, it is impossible to conduct with com­ all, and because they see at present no other road. plete success a policy aimed at making hateful and con tern pt.­ 27. One of the most reliable methods of counteracting ible the idea of the left bloc among the working class, if in the within the working class the moods and ideas of the left bloc, ranks of our own party there are partisans of this left bloc i.e. a bloc between workers and a certain section of the bour­ bold enough openly to defend this scheduled program of the geoisie against another section of the bourgeoisie is the per­ bourgeoisie. Unconditional and merciless expulsion in dis­ sistent, resolute fostering of the idea of a bloc between all sec­ grace of those who come out in favor of the idea of the left tions of the working class against the whole bourgeoisie. bloc is a self-understood duty of the Communist Party. This 28. In relation to the dissidents this means that we must will cleanse our policy of elements of equivocation and un:- March 1941 FOURTH .INTERNATiONAL Page 89 clarity; this will attract the attention of advanced workers to ideas of Tolstoyanism and all other varieties of pacifism must the acuteness of the question of the left bloc and will demon­ unquestionably bring expulsion from the party. strate that the Communist Party does not trifle with questions 36. It might, however, be said that so long as the work which threaten the revolutionary unity in action of the pro­ .of cleansing the party from prejudices of the past and so long letariat against the bourgeoisie. as the work of attaining internal cohesion remains uncom­ 33. Those who seek to use the idea of the united front pleted, it would be dangerous to place the party in situations for agitating in favor of unification with the reformists and where it would come into close proximity with reformists and dissidents must be mercilessly ejected from our party, inas­ nationalists. But such a point of view is false. Naturally, one much as they serve as the agency of the dissidents in our cannot deny that a transition from broad propagandist ac­ ranks and are deceiving the workers about the reasons for the tivity to direct participation in the mass movement carries split and who is really responsible for it. Instead of correctly with it new difficulties and therefore dangers for the Com­ posing the question of the possibility of this or that prac­ munist Party. But it would be completely wrong to suppose tical, coordinated action with the dissidents, despite their that the party can be prepared for all tests without directly petty-bourgeois and essentially counter-revolutionary char­ participating in struggles, without directly coming in­ acter, they are demanding that our own party renounce its to contact with enemies and adversaries. On the con­ Communist program and revolutionary methods. The ejec­ trary, only in this way can a real non-fictitious internal tion of such elements, mercilessly and in disgrace, will best cleansing and fusing of the party be achieved. I t is quite demonstrate that the tactic of the workers' united front in no possible that some elements in the party and the trade union way resembles capitulation to or reconciliation with the bureaucracy will feel themselves drawn more closely to the reformists. The tactic of the united front demands from the reformists, from whom they have accidentally split, than party complete freedom in maneuvering, flexibility and reso­ towards us. The loss of such fellow ... travellers will not be a luteness. To make this possible, the party must clearly and liability but an asset, and it will be compensat~d one hundred specifically declare at every given moment just what its wishes fold by the inflow of those working men and women who are, just what it is striving for, and it must comment authori­ still follow the reformists today. The party will in conse­ tatively, before the eyes of the masses, on its own steps and quence become more homogeneous, more resolute and more· proposals. proletarian. 34. Hence flows the complete inadmissibility for indi­ vidual party members to issue on their own responsibility VI. The Tasks of the Party .in the and risk political publications in which they counterpose their Trade Union Movement own slogans, methods of action and proposals to the slogans, 37. Unqualified clarity on the trade union question is a methods of action and proposals of the party. task of first-rate importance, by far surpassing all the other Under the cov~r of the Communist Party and conse­ tasks before the Communist Party of France. quently also in that milieu which is influenced by a Commu­ Naturally, the legend spread by the reformists that plans. nist cover, i.e., in a workers' milieu, they spread from day to are on foot to subordinate the trade unions organizationally day ideas hostile to us, or they sow confusion and skepticism to the party must be unconditionally denounced and exposed. which are even more injurious than openly hostile ideologies. The trade unions embrace workers of different political shad­ Organs of this sort, together with their editors, must ings as well as non-party men, atheists as well believers, once and for all be placed outside the party, and the entire whereas the party unites political co-thinkers on the basis of workers' France must learn about this from articles which mer­ a definite program. The party has not and cannot have any cilessly expose the petty-bourgeois smugglers under a Com­ instruments and methods for subjecting the trade unions to munist flag. itself from the outside. 35. From what has been said also follows the complete The party can gain an influence in the life of the trade inadmissibility of this, that in the leading publications of unions only to the extent that its members work in the trade the party there should appear side by side with articles de­ unions and carry out the party point of view there. The in­ fending the basic concepts of Communism, other articles dis­ fluence of party members in the trade unions naturally de­ puting these concepts or denying them. Absolutely imper­ pends on their numerical strength and especially on the de­ missible is the continuation of a regime in the party press gree to which they are able to apply correctly, consistently under which the mass of worker-readers find, in the guise of and expediently the principles of the party to the needs of the' editorials in the leading Communist organs, articles. which trade union movement. try to turn us back to positions of tearful pacifism and which The party has the right and the duty to aim to conquer, propagate among workers a debilitating hostility toward revo­ along the road above outlined, the decisive influence in the lutionary violence in the face of the triumphant violence of trade union organizations. It can achieve this goaLonly pro­ the bourgeoisie. Under the guise of a struggle against mili­ vided the work of the Communists in the trade' unions is tarism a struggle is thus being conducted against the ideas of wholly and exclusively harmonized with the principles of the revolution and uprising. party and is invariably conducted under its control. , If after the experience of the war and all t.he subsequent 38. The minds of all Communists must, therefore, be events, especially in Russia and Germany, the prejudices of completely purged of reformist prejudices, in accordance with humanitarian pacifism have still survived in the Communist which the party is looked upon as a political parliamentary or­ Party, and if the party finds it advisable in the intere~ts of ganization of the proletariat, and nothing more. The Com­ the complete liquidation of these prejudices to open a dISCUS­ munist 'Party is the organization of the proletarian vanguard sion on this question, then the pacifists with their prej!Jdices for the ideological fructification of the labor movement and cannot in any case come forward in this discussion as an equal the assumption of leadership in all spheres-first and fore­ force but must be severely condemned by the authoritative most in the trade unions. If the trade unions are not subor­ voice of the party, in the name of its Central Committee. dinate to the party but wholly autonomous organizations, After the Central Committee has decided that the discussion then the Communists inside the trade unions cannot pretend has been exhausted, all attempts to spread the debilitating to any kind of autonomy in their trade union activity but Page 90 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941 must act as the transmitters of the program and tactic of their constant and systematic criticism the shortcomings of revo­ party. To be most severely condemned is the conduct of those lutionary trade unionism for solving the basic tasks of the Communists who not only do not fight inside the trade unions proletariat. The party must tirelessly and persistently crit­ for the influence of the ide2 of the party but actually coun­ icize the weak theoretical and practical sides of trade union­ teract such a struggle for the sake of a principle of "auton­ ism, explaining at the same time to its best elements that the 'omy" which is applied absolutely falsely by them. As a mat­ only correct road for securing the revolutionary influence on ter of fact, they thus pave the way for the decisive influence trade unions and on the labor movement as a whole is the 'on the trade unions of individuals, groups and cliques who entry of revolutionary trade unionists into the Communist are bound neither by a definite program nor by party organi­ Party; their participation in working out of all the basic' zation and who utilize the amorphousness of ideological questions' of the movement, in drawing the balance sheet of groupings and relations in order to keep the organizational experience, in determining new tasks, in cleansing the Com­ apparatus in their own hands and to secure the independence munist Party itself and strengthening its ties with the work­ of their clique from any actual control on the ydrt of the ing masses. workers'vanguard. 40. It is absolutely indispensable to take a census of all I f the party, in its activity within the trade union!', must the members of the French Communist Party, in order to de­ show the greatest attentiveness and caution towards the non­ termine their social status (workers, civil employees, peasants, party masses and their conscientious and honest representa­ intellectuals, etc.), their relations with the trade union move­ tives; if the party must, on the basis of joint work, systemat­ ment (do they belong to trade unions? do they participate in ically and tactically draw closer to the best elements of the Communist meetings? in meetings of the revolutionary trade trade union movement-including the revolutionary anarch­ unions? do they carry out the decisions of the party on the ists who are capable of learning--then, the party can on the trade unions? etc.), their attitude toward the party press contrary no longer tolerate in its midst those pseudo-Commu­ (what party publications do they read?), and so on. nists who utilize the status of party membership only in order all the more confidently to foster anti-party influences in the The census must be so conducted that its chief aspects trade unions. can be taken into account before the Fourth World Congress. 39. The party through its own press, its own propa­ convenes. gandists and its, members in the trade unions must submit to March 2, 1922. The War Deal's Economics By WILLIAM F. WARDE For a long time it seemed to the lofty plutocrats of the the monopolist forces of American capitalism. So long as big United States that they could escape embroilment in Europe's business controls the economy and government of our coun­ and Asia's wars and get others to fight for them. This era of try, intervention in the war was absolutely inescapable. pacifist illusions and pretentions is now as dead as William I t is no secret that the economy of the United States has jennings Bryan. Despite all their wealth and advantages, their been in a chronic crisis since 1929 and that this condition is .continental security and resources, the capitalist rulers of the something new in our history. The editors of the New York United States could find n,o better solution for their difficult­ Times, whose devotion to the capitalist system is unquestion­ ies than their Japanese, German, English, French and Italian able, wrote last month: "So far as actual production was con­ .counterparts. They, too, have been obliged to militarize the cerned, previous depressions had run only a year or two; the nation in preparation for waging war in all corners of the depression of 1929 has continued to drag along in America." globe. Imperialist capitalism can maintain itself today only In proof they cited the following statistics on the rate of by the most bloody, brutal, barbarous methods. The supreme industrial expansion during the past four decades compiled by taw of monopoly capitalism is: rule the planet-or perish! the National Bureau of Economic Research. "From 1899 to The entry of the United States into the inter-imperialist 1909 factory output increased at the rate of 4.7 per cent a combat opens a new chapter in the history of American im­ year. From 1909 to 1919 the rate of increase was 3.4 per cent perialism-the most crucial in its career. The First World. a year. From 1919 to 1929 it was 5.1 per cent a year. From War, it is now obvious, was a dress-rehearsal for the star role 1929 to 1937, however, the rate of increase fell to 0.4 per cent; American imperialism is destined to enact in the Second and if 1929 is taken as the terminal year, the rate of annual World War. The interval between wars was only a period of change was a falling off of 0.1 per cent." preparation for the present titanic struggle for the repartition 'of the world. By its intervention in the war American imper­ These figures provide the most objective test of the ialism aims at dictating, not only to its imperialist enemies achievements of Roosevelt's regime, since the national pro­ but also to the peoples of the world, the conditions under ductive forces and the extent of their output form the material which they may live, work, and be exploited. This is the real, basis for progress in all other spheres. Roosevelt promised the, ultimate war aim of the Roosevelt government. that his New Deal policies supplemented by Hull's trade­ pacts would restore American economy to its former flourish­ The Permanent Crisis ing condition. The President did not, and could not, make We have time and again insisted that the United States good. His reform measures and alphabetic agencies, his bil­ has not been drawn into this dance of death through any lions of expenditures, his cajoling of capital could not hoist .chance combination of historical circumstances or by any American industry back to 1929 levels; nor did the few recip­ such secondary factors as the rise of H itlerism or the fall of rocal trade-pacts negotiated by Hull expand foreign trade to 'France. The driving force behind the war party comes from 1929 dimensions. the permanent crisis within our social system engendered by When the economy took another alarming nose-dive March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAl.:. Page 91

toward the end of 1937, the policy of internal reform finally est political powers. Roosevelt had hoped to bridle the big demonstrated its insufficiency. The debacle of the New Deal business interests and make them accept his liberal program was s')on followed by a similar breakdown of the pacifist for­ of reforms. I t has now turned out that Wall Street has har­ eign policy in the face of the approaching imperialist dog­ nessed Washington to its war chariot. The War Deal is the fight. supreme expression of the deepening crisis of American mon­ The bankruptcy of Roosevelt's original policies in· the opoly capitalism. pconomic and political spheres at home and abroad led him to seek new ways of solving the chronic crisis of American Economic Consequences of the War Deal capitalism. Only one road was left open to him: a military Roosevelt's War Deal has already proved more successful adventure along the lines charted by the vital requirements than his New Deal in jacking up industry. Last year for the of the big business and banking interests of North America. first time industrial operations surpassed 1929. Here are the Federal Reserve Board's indices of industrial production for Roosevelt and Big Business three key years. As in all highly developed capitalist countries, only two 1929 1937 1940 decisive social forces exist in the United States: the capitalist Highest Montly Rate ...... 114 136 class and the wage workers. At the head of the capitalist class Yearly Average ...... 110 113 122 stand the monopolists. At the head of the proletariat stand the The 1940 average topped 1939 by 12 per cent; 1937 by trade unions, who lead the rest of the masses behind them. 8 per cent; and 1929 by 11 per cent. Roosevelt the reformer hoped that he would reconcile the The january Bulletin of the National City Bank estim­ conflicting claims of these opposing classes. He wished to ates that newall-time peaks have been registered in produc­ be the impartial and benevolent arbiter of their differences tion of iron and steel, machine-tools, electrical equipment, and dispense justice to all. aircraft, aluminum, cotton and rayon goods, rubber products, In working out this policy of class compromise Roosevelt chemicals and electric power. Steel production outstripped the was forced to lean now on the one class and now on the other. previous record year of 1929 by 4,417,201 tons, or seven per This gave his regime a two-faced character: one side, the side cent, and is at present operating close to capacity of output. of social reform, reflected the concessions made to the masses The influence of the war upon economy is also sharply under pressure of their demands upon the government. The manifested in foreign trade. U. S. exports bounded upward in other side was turned toward their millionaire masters. 1940, totalling $4,021,564,000, the highest since 1929. One The early part of Roosevelt's administration which coin­ need not look further for the motive force behind the alliance cided with the first stormy upsurge of the labor movement with England and the hostility toward Germany than the represented the peak of the masses' influence upon Roosevelt's facts that the vast bulk of our exports now goes to the British regime. The people's power was at no time decisive. Whether Empire and that Hitler's conquests have cut Continental the disbursement of federal funds or the settlement of an im­ Europe's purchases from us to an insignificant percentage. The portant strike was at issue-, the monopolists who operated expansion of American exports by $843,000,000 over 1939 upon the administration behind the scene had the last word. was made possible by the enormous increases in purchases by They fixed the limits of the New Deal's activities, curbing the British Empire, which more than compensated for the Roosevelt whenever he threatened to exceed the concessions loss of other markets. The British Empire now takes nearly they would make. two-thirds of America's exports, the United Kingdom alone Nevertheless Roosevelt's policies were not completely and taking one-third. directly determined by the monopolists, who would have pre­ The increasing anxiety over South America, the tender ferred a more docile and pliable President; one, like Hoover, concern for China, the turn toward the Far East? Last year who would give nothing to the people and everything to the the Sotfth American) Ciountries bought $156,000,000 more plutocrats. Big business was especially irked by the inability American goods than the year before; China, $22,000,000- of heavy industry to respond to the emergency treatments more; japan $5,000,000 more. Meanwhile this country in­ (.f Roosevelt and Hull and, like all rich cantankerous patients, creased its imports from Latin America by $102,000,000 and blamed the doctors for failing to cure them. from Asia by $281,000,000. Roosevelt, however, couldn't inject new vitality into The economic impact of the war is likewise reflected in heavy industry by purely internal and peaceful means. The the change in the character of our exports and imports. Air­ tremendous productiVe forces and resources controlled by the craft (including parts and accessories) became for the first nJunopolists needed the whole world for their expansion. But time the principal American import item. The foreign sales of our monopolists encountered abroad the same restrictions such military materials as raw cotton, iron and steel. non­ upon their activities that their own state imposed upon for­ ferrous metals, machinery, chemicals, explosives and fire­ eign competition. The growing German and japanese expan­ arms shot upward. Rubber, tin, copper, bauxite, nickel, man­ sionism began to crowd out American monopolists from the ganese and other raw materials vital for military purposes world markets, threatening to place heavy industry on more were imported in record quantities. From the British Empire reduced rations. came rubber, tin, nickel, and raw wool to help pay for air­ The purely economic and diplomatic measures taken by planes and steel; from China came tungsten, raw silk, and tin"; Roosevelt and Hull could not counteract this menace. Where from the Dutch East Indies came rubber and tin. physics and plasters couldn't effect a cure old-time physicians Out, of such tangible stuffs, and not out of democratic used to resort to blood-letting. The quack-doctors of capital­ dreams and humanitarian considerations, are the war plans of ism have no more scientific remedy for the iIls of their system. U. S. imperialism being fabricated. Throughout the thirties, bourgeois economists and politicians How foolish do the isolationists of all categories appear scanned the horizon for the new industry which would rein- - in the light of these figures! The foundations of American vigorate American economy. Their search culminated in the economy are being radically reconstructed by the war and rediscovery of the world's oldest industry: war. adapted to fit the needs of the military machine. The ill­ In the long run economic necessities override the strong- assorted company of pacifist preachers, provincial politicians, ,Page 92 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL March 1941

Thom.as S~ialists and Stalinists who pretend that they can the~ enormous. profits some money that should be given to .;prevaIl agams~ these economic forces pulling the United States theIr employes III the way of wage increases." mto war deceIve themselves and what is far worse deceive ltUnfortunately," he added, lithe attitude of American tho~e ~or~ers ~h~ listen to them. Only the overthrow of industry today is one of absolute, positive refusal to' make -capltahst ImperIalIsm and its replacement by a workers' gov­ wage concessions of any description. They contend that if the ·ernment can put an end to this reactionary war. There is no wage structure is improved and men and women are given ,other way out for the workers. nrore money that it might result in something they call in­ Who Benefits from the War-Boom? flation. Jn an address at Atlantic City on February 2'5th, Philip "So they suggest, these leaders of American industry, very .Murray, CIO President, cited the following figures: bluntly, very boldly, that nothing should be done in the Net Profit United States of America during the period of national defense to improve living standards or to increase wages and that at 1940 No. Em- Per Corporatiun Earnings ployes Employe the same time nothing should be done in the United States by 'General Motors $195.500,000 200,000 ,977 government, labor or industry to disturb the profit-making American Tel. & Tel. 137,200,000 260,000 528 opportunities of American industry." Standard Oil of New Jersey 110,000,000 55,000 2,000 Murray would like to obtain wages in friendly confer­ :U. S. Steel 102,180,000 260,000 420 ences with ltenlightened" employers or through the pressure of Du Pont 99,900,000 45,000 2,220 ~ friendly government upon recalcitrant bosses, instead of General Electric 55,000,000 65,000 826 through independent strike action on the part of the workers themselves. But this last has proved to be the best and most Many of these corporations are making more profits per ,emptoye than the average annual wage of their own employ­ practical method for extracting concessions from the employ­ ers, as the steel workers at Lackawanna, the auto workers in ees! Bethlehem ~teel earned over $12 a share last year; open­ Flint, and the Vultee aircraft workers can testify. s~~p Douglas alrc~aft over $18 per share, after generous pro­ VISIOns for deprecIation, surplus, and executive's salaries. Ac­ cordi~g to a New York Times report of January 27th, 44 in­ The Crisis of Agriculture dustrIal corporations show 1940 net earnings 25.6 per cent No branc~ of American economy has been so hard hit by above those of 1929. the war as agr~culture. World War I lifted American agricul­ Jn addition to these superprofits, the big corporations are ture t~ new heIghts; World War II is dragging it down to ut­ being enriched more directly. by a bountiful government and ter rum. War Department. There is hardly a company listed on the Agriculture has suffered almost complete loss of its ex­ Stock Exchanges which is not expanding its plants, adding port mar~et.s. ~ont.inental Europe now buys nothing from us. ne~ properties, or undertaking extensive operations entirely Great Bntam IS usmg her money and credit to buy munitions ,at government expense. Chrysler is building tank plants; Du instead of food. P.ont, explosiv~s; General Motors, airplane engines; Douglas, Exports of wheat in 1938-39 amounted to 107000000 aIrcraft factorIes; Packard, Ford, Studebaker, Buick, engines; bushels. This year the best estimate is that wheat exp~rts 'Will I-Iudson, guns, torpedo parts, and ammunitions, etc. All these not exceed 20,000,000 bushels. productive facilities are paid for by the people and then owned Last year we exported 6,000,000 bales of cotton: the top estimate for this year is 1,500,000. Of' operated for the exclusive benefit of private corporate in­ terests. Tobacco growers have lost export markets for 250,000,000 The present war-boom is, however, far more spotty and pounds; hog producers have lost markets for 75,000,000 one-sided than any previous industrial rise in our history. It p~unds of pork and 140,000,000 pounds of lard; fruit growers is largely confined to heavy industry and within these limits wIll not sell abroad this year 10,000,000 bushels of apples to the topmost strata. Many of the smaller industrial com­ and 3,000,000 boxes of oranges that were normal export quotas panies are given little or no contracts by the government. before the war. According to Philip Murray, one corporation, presumably Roosevelt's henchmen are exploiting this situation to win Bethlehem, has government business on its books that it could over the farmers to the war. Assistant Secretary of State not hope to execute within three and a half years, although Acheson told the National Farm Institute at Des Moines on there were at least fifty small steel companies that could take February 21 st that ltthe prospect of having' to sell our sur­ these jobs and produce goods of the same quality with dis­ pluses in a Europe which is under the domination of a buyers" patch. Murray added that he was told by a government of­ monopoly maintained by a foreign dictatorship is one which ficial that 12,000 industrial plants were capable of producing farmers in this hemisphere cannot face with equanimity ... goods essential to the war and that two months ago 30 per with foreign markets closed or controlled the farmer would cent of these were "enjoying the benefits" of government con­ find that the domestic market which has been going forward tracts while 70 per cent were without government business. for the past eight years would be reversed." The Southern The big corporations are also favored at the expense of Senators, ringleaders of the war faction in Congress, want their smaller competitors by the allotment of priorities of es­ to rescue agriculture by crushing all competition by military sential materials, such as aluminum and magnesium. These force. allotments are designated and controlled by dollar-a-year­ men at Washington who, in many cases, were yesterday lead­ Economic Prospects of the War Deal ing officers of these very companies and expect to return to As the War Deal continues to unfold, it must produce them after the war. even more serious consequences for economy. The recent raise of the federal debt limit from 49 to 65 billions is only the first Big Business and the Workers rung on a ladder of debt, which will mount, like Jack's bean­ Murray declared he had talked with some of ltthe most stalk, to the skies. The war program already calls for an out­ ()utstanding industrialists in the United States within the .last lay of 28.5 billion dollars. Treasury officials estimate that the few weeks" and had suggested "that there should be taken from new debt limit will have been reached by the end of the next March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 93 fiscal year. Their estimate is far too optimistic. The govern­ ume of goods in 1939 than in 1929. This tremendous rise in ment ~i~l be com~elled t~is year, as it was last, to step up ap­ the productivity of labor works against expansion of the labor proprIatIons to hItherto Inconceivable totals. The War Deal force, on the one hand, and accounts for the colossal profits is piling up a national debt of intolerable proportions upon reaped by the trusts on the other. This can be dearly seen in the backs of the American people. the steel industry where the building of continuous strip sheet . This burden will be felt most keenly in heawer taxes, mills has thrown and kept. whole communities, like New­ further curtailment of relief and other social services and castle, Pa., out of employment. price inflation. The entry of the government into all mar­ While heavy industry expects the boom to last for the kets as the biggest buyer together with the feverish competi­ duration of the war, agriculture faces further restrictions upon tion of industries for raw materials and available supplies its markets. The spread of the war and the complete involve­ keeps pushing up pric~s of all commodities. The vast pur­ ment of the United States will cut off more foreign markets; chases by government agents of food, clothing, medicines, inflation will curtail its domestic market. supplies of all kinds involves higher prices for these neces­ The gross unevenness of the war-boom and the serious­ sities of life to the ordinary consumer. The average working ness of the world crisis produce weaknesses in all parts of our class family is already finding it harder to make both ends economy and introduce uncertainty in its directing circles. The meet. The American people are being forced to forego, not approaching conflict with japan, for example, will eliminate only butter for guns, but autos for tanks, new housing for our second largest foreign market. The drastic reorganization army encampments, less consumers' goods for more d.estroyers. of American economy now in full swing is making our econ­ Although a certain percentage of the unemployed is be­ omy so lop-sided and top-heavy that it lacks the stability to ing reabsorbed into expanding industry, the ever-increasing withstand many more severe shocks. efficiency and technological improvements of industry set The surprisingly low prices of shares on the stock ex­ limits upon their number. In this respect a different situation changes despite record earnings signifies that the greatest prevails in heavy industry today than in the last war. Ac­ capitalists themselves lack confidence in the ability of their cording to the National I ndustrial Conference Board, from system to overcome the shocks in store for it. or to endure 1916 to 1919 output per man hour fell from 157 to 136 much more damage. The plutocrats thereby display in reality (1900 used as base of 100), owing to the lower level of tech­ far less faith in the firmness of American and world capitalism nology and the greater use of unskilled labor. In the two de­ than many ex-radicals. The defeatist attitude of the money cades between wars, output per man hour rose' steadily, reach­ masters toward their own economy should inspire the revolu­ ing 325 in 1939 and an estimated 335 in 1940. tionary workers with fresh confidence in their endeavors to According to the latest census of manufactures, six per replace this decaying system with a healthy new socialist cent less wage-workers produced a three per cent larger vol- society. The Pacific War Front By GEORGE STERN Birds of prey have supplanted swallows as th.e harbingers tion on the grounds, openly stated by Secretary of State Cor­ of Spring. This year they herald new battles not only in dell Hull, that such limitations would weaken U. S. policy Europe but in Asia too. vis-a-vis j apan~ Preparations for extending the Far Eastern front of the While not as yet necessarily presaging immediate war Second World War are already far advanced. In anticipation action, these associated Anglo-American moves constituted of the German Spring offensive against Britain, japan has a serious warning to japan that the United States and Britain been edging slowly southward. I ts new establishments in were ready to pool their Pacific forces to check Japan's south­ Southern Indochina and on the Spratley Islands in the South ward push. Since it is obviously japan's policy to go as far China Sea have brought japanese forces within seven hundred as it can without risking American intervention-at least in miles of Singapore, key to the Indies and the mastery of the present period-these moves temporarily halted japan's Sou thern Asia. program. Conciliatory statements came from Tokyo. Reports At the beginning of March, Britain and the United States, of an immediate "crisis" were hotly denied. For a moment acting in close concert, successfully maneuvered japan into a the shouting died down. Then Foreign Minister Matsuoka frightened pause. On March· I, the British announced the announced a journey to Moscow, Berlin, and Rome. The time landing of a large Australian army at Singapore. This force, has obviously come for Germany to plot a two-ocean strategy complete with air and mechanized units, moved at once to the in view of the increased tempo of U.S. participation in the war Thai (Siam) frontier across which japan might possibly at­ and japan has to find out how far it can count upon U. S. tack Malaya by land. involvement in the Atlantic. A few days later General Marshall, U. S. Chief of Staff, For it is clearly' understood that the next moves await told a Congressional committee in secret testimony that the the march of events in Europe. The outcome of the German Far Eastern situation was "serious." He disclosed that the Spring offensive-or even of its opening phases-may largely Army was turning over some of its newest bombers to the determine in Tokyo and Washington the further tactics to be Navy and that they were being flown to Pacific outposts. This pursued in the unfolding battle for the wealth of Asia. "secret" testimony was allowed to filter to the press. The same This battle lies primarily-in imperialist premises-be­ wee~ Congress appropriated the often-refused funds to fortify tween.the United States and japan for the legacy of Britain's Guam and other Pacific islands. Finally, in the course of the century-old domination in the Orient. Britain has already in Lend-Lease Bill debate, all efforts to limit use of U. S. forces effect accepted a junior partnership in a world-wide Anglo­ to the Western hemisphere were repulsed by the Administra- American alliance. By this means the British ruling class Page 94 FOURtH INTERNATIONAL March 1941 hopes to salvage what it can of its embattled empire. But by own economic feebleness, these adventures proved abortive. this means also U. S. imperialism is embarking deliberately Instead the.y served only to intensify the strain on the J apan­ upon a course of world conquest. Its British ltfriends" as well ese economIC structure. as its Axis enemies will be compelled to cede power and pelf The Japanese army deliberately destroyed competitive to it. The outcome of the war in both oceans-again measured Chinese industrial plants to leave the market open for Japan's by imperialist premises alone-depends upon the effective products. Business men and traders swarmed in after the in­ role of U. S. imperialism. In assessing American war strategy, vading hordes. Yet it proved impossible for Japan to realize it must always be kept in mind that a victorious Germany is on its heavy investment in military operations. Manchuria, a far more formidable opponent than Japan. The U. S. war. occupied nine years ago, has paid no dividends. In China machine will not be ready for several years to fight a war in proper Japan has proved unable to consolidate its extensive both oceans on the scale necessary to win. Nevertheless, in military gains. Instead Japan itself has been drained of its whatever combination of strengths and circumstances and meager resources. Japanese war and armament expenditures whether it be sooner or later, U. S. imperialism is preparing for the current year are budgeted at about eight billion yen­ for a showdown with Japan in the Pacific. seven times more than in 1937. More than three quarters of Japan, the Weakest Link this is being covered by inflationary methods which are stead­ Taken by themselves, these two antagonists in the Pacific ily depressing the already low standard of living. In January, basin are so disproportionate in size and strength that the 1941, a leading Japanese economist estimated that the stand­ outcome of the struggle seems preordained. ard of living in Japan had declined 40 per cent from the 1937 Japan came late into the family of imperialist nations. level. I ts capitalist development was a latter-day graft on a feudal­ Despite this, the logic of expansionism compels the J ap­ agrarian economy. A great military superstructure was erect­ anese to extend themselves still further. The turn of events ed, perilously overhanging a narrow economic base. From the in Europe during 1940 opened up dazzling opportunities for ranks of an impoverished peasantry proletarian forces were expansion southward at the expense of France and Britain­ rEcruited into industrial slavery. Their toil and sweat had to opportunities which might never again be presented. Although be made to compensate for Japan's lack of all the vital ele­ already involved hopelessly in China with a million men in ments of a heavy industrial economy. It has had to depend an army of occupation and billions in material, Japan is try­ almost entirely upon imported iron and steel and largely upon ing to grasp its opportunity. Banking upon a complete defeat irr:ported fuel. The light industries it built have had to be fed of Britain and involvement of the United States in the At­ with imported raw materials. Its textile plants have had to lantic, Japan is reaching out for the fabulous wealth of the depend upon cotton imports from India and the United States. I ndies, for the total mastery of Asia. Its guns and warships have had. to be hammered o~t of Am~­ Thus at the threshold of incomparably more costly and rican scrap and have been lubncated and fueled WIth Amen­ dangerous conflicts with major imperialist rivals, Japan is a can oil. Especially since the outbreak of the war in Europe, \veakened power incapable of sustaining a single major defeat. this dependence upon American or American-controlled sourc­ I t must depend not upon its main strength but upon tran­ es has pervaded all of Japanese economy. sitory strategic advantages deriving from Pacific geography Coming into a world whose markets and sources of raw and Nazi victories in Europe. Moreover, it is doubtful materials had already in the main been divided among the whether it can exploit even these advantages without running older imperialist powers,. Japanese imperialism had to resort even greater risks than defeats in battle. Even if the course almost at once to military adventures to extend its slim econ­ of the war in Europe lessens the effectiveness of Anglo­ omic foundations. The history of Japanese efforts at con­ A 1)lAJ,'ican resistance in the Pacific, in Japan itself the worker~ tinental expansion go back nearly half a century. Wars were and peasants and masses generally are straining at insupport­ fought against China in 1895 and against Russia in 1905. able bonds. The regime of the Mikado and his generals and Korea was annexed and Manchuria converted into a "sphere his admirals has perhaps least chance of all to survive the of influence." convulsions of the present war. Japan is the weakest link in By joining the Allies in the first World War, Japan the imperialist chain that holds the peoples of the Pacific acquired most of Germany's Asiatic holdings. During the war enslaved. it tried with its infamous ltTwenty-One Demands," to con­ vert China into a colony. Just after the war it tried to get a The Yankees' Advantages foothold in Maritime Siberia. From all these positions, Japan Stemming from a gigantic heavy industrial base woven was compelled to retreat. U. S. pressure exe~ted at the Wash­ into might units by a powerful financial mesh, U. S. imper­ ington Conference in 1922 force~ evacua~IO~ of Shantung. ialism has been able in the main to wage its battles on the The Bolsheviks drove Japanese mterventIOmst forces from world market with financial rather than military weapons. Soviet territory. The rise of the Chinese revolutionary move­ The peoples of Cuba, the Philip?ines, Hait~, Mexico, Nicara­ ment during 1924-27 dictated a cautious and significant pas­ gua, and of China too can testIfy that ~hIS has not always sivity on Japan's part until the revolution was successfully been the rule but, by and large, the Umted States has been' crushed. able to fight with super-imperialist methods. It used to be Still poor in production goods and bursting ~ith con­ called dollar imperialism. It now goes by the name of good sumption goods produced by sweated labor out of Im~ort~d neighbor policy. Only now, in the midst. of a ~itanic world raw materials, Japan was less able than most of the capItalIst conflict, is it being compelled to enforce Its claIms by brute powers to withstand the onset of the W9r.ld crisis. i~ 1929. The strength. ' disappearance of free markets, the erectIOn of tanff barn~rs, The qualitative difference between Japanese and U, S. the ebb in world production, the collapse of world curre~cIes, imperialism can perhaps be il~ustrate? b~st by ~eference to goaded Japan into fresh efforts to expand on the contm~nt. China. Japan has had to send Its armI~s mto .Chm~ actually The invasion of Manchuria began in. 1931 and of Chma to destroy the budding Chinese industrIes WhI~h mIght com­ proper in 1937. However, in co?ditions ~f w~rl~ crisis an? pete with their Japanese counterparts. The U~Ite? State~, on economic dislocation supplementmg and mtenslfymg Japan s the contrary, is capable of ultImately dommatm,g Chmese \ March 1941 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 9S

economy by providing it with capital goods and draining off political advantage. The United States can appear before the super-profits by direct or indirect financial control. Uncon­ subject peoples of Asia as a "liberator" concerned with their summated inter-imperialist rivalries have so far blocked this freedom and growth. To the Chinese masses especially, the course, but it is for this that the United States has for fifty United States could present itself as a rescuer come to strike years been the proponent of the "Open Door" in China. I t is off the fetters made in japan. What the Chinese people have this perspective that makes China the great potential reser­ to learn now is that victory over japan won solely through voir for capital investment over which the great powers must U. S. intervention would open the way not to freedom but to . inevitably come into conflict. fresh enslavement under new slavemasters. Totalitarian world Because japan cannot tolerate competitive industrial de­ control will be no picnic for anybody. The standards of pre­ velopment in China, it cannot come to mutually satisfactory sent-day exploitation will be standards of plenty by compari­ terms with the Chinese bourgeoisie. I t can offer them places son with what is to come. The people of China are fully capa­ as salaried clerks and salesmen. U. S. imperialism, on the ble of winning their own freedom through a genuine national contrary, can in theory allow considerable room for Chinese revolutionary struggle against the' invaders and the native bourgeois enterprise. It can afford it as an overh.ead charge. exploiters. I n such a struggle they can utilize imperialist an­ That is why the Chinese bourgeoisie rests its -hopes today upon tagonisms instead of becoming the hapless victims of inter­ successful U. S. intervention in the Pacific and the develop­ imperialist conflict. japan is their main enemy today. But the ment of China as an American economic and financial de­ "friend" who will come from across the Pacific to "help" them pendency. will become the main enemy tomorrow. For that transforma­ But this perspective-and it does not apply only to tion they have to be prepared, or else suffer new defeats. China-is conceivable only with a return of relative capital­ ist stability on a world scale. Such stability can be achieved American workers rightly sympathize with China's fight flOW only through domination of the world by a single power against japan. This does not mean they can support U. S. or bloc of powers. The epoch of capitalist decline is unable imperialist intervention in the Pacific. They will be for inde­ any longer to support the old rivalries, the old antagonisms, pendent material aid to China by every possible means. But the old divisions of territory and spoils. Capitalism can sur­ to support an American imperialist adventure in the Pacific vive only in the super-concentrated form of totalitarianism. is to help tighten the bonds that hold the people of this COU:1- Thus the present war-which is being fought to decide who try, of China, and of japan, in capitalist enslavement. shall be master of the globe. The United States will achieve Actually the greatest hope of liberation for the people of this mastery only by defeating Germany in Europe and japan China and the other subjected lands of Asia does not reside in Asia and this means years of extended and exhausting con­ in extension of the imperialist war to the Pacific, or the sub­ flict in both hemispheres on military and economic fronts. stitution of U. S. imperialist domination for the ·British, the In this conflict, the war between japan and the United States japanese, the German. It resides in the victory of their own may well be reduced to the proportions of a single episode, national revolutions and of the workers' revolution on a world like the crushing of France. scale. I t is not a change of imperialist masters that the world However that may be, the qualitative difference between needs. It is the end of imperialism and the establishment of japanese and U. S. imperialism gives the latter an important a world socialist federation. - Combination Offer --S pecial For This Month Only No Orders Received After APRIL 15, 1941

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For Our Spanish R,eaders A New Pioneer Publishers Pamphlet By Leon Trotsky Los Gangsters De Stalin The Assassination (196 pages) of Leon Trotsky An analysis and documents on the Comintern and the GPU The Proofs of Stalin's Guilt .2 pesos (Mexican) • By ALBERT GOLDMAN .1!Y Albert C.oldman A~torney for Leon Trotsky and Natalia Sedov Trotsky Quien Esta Detras Del Asesino De Trotsky II Los hechos ye los argumentos que prueban Ia tulpabilidadde Stalin. Price 15c 50 centavos (Mexican) • II Send orders to: EDITORIAL CLAVE Pioneer Publishers II Apartado 8942' Mexico, D. F. I 116 University Place New York, New York III~ ~~~~~~I

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