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Trotsky Memorial Issue Trotsky Memorial Issue 10 Years After the GPU Assassination Leon Trotsky ---- A New Vindication Stalin's Frame-Up System The Test of Yugoslavia Downfall of Colonial Empires July-August 19S1J 2Sc thing is that he has had peo~ Manager's Column pIe look him up the next day I J FOURTH INTERNATIONAL and comment favorably on the articles they read. I think an­ Volume 11 July-August No.4 (Whole No. 105) "I think the latest issueCYf I other order of 75 copies would the FI is splendid. I gave my be a proper amount at this Published Bimonthly by the copy to a friend who was very time." impressed." This opinion, ex­ Fourth International Pu.blis hing Association The Philadelphia branch of the SWP took and extra 65 pressed by, J. H. London, 116 University Pl., New York 3, iN,Y. Telephone: Algonquin 4-9330. ot. Subscription rates: U.S.A. and Latin America $1.25 for 6 issues; copies to begin with. They ex­ England, seems to sum up the bundles, 20c for ,5 copies and up. li'oreign and Canada: $1.510 for 6 issues; bundles 21c for 5 copIes and up. pect "to use the issue to good general reaction of our sub- , , Reentered' as second class matter April 4, 1950, at the Post advantage during the election scribers to the May-June Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. campaign." Fourth International which was Managing Editor: GEORGE CLARKE Chicago ordered 25 extra Business Manager: JOS~PH HANSEN copies; Oakland, 9; Flint, 17; devoted to "Marxism and the and New York, 100. Negro Struggle." May we remind our litera­ "Please send us 20 more CONTENTS ture agents that we can still fill orders for more copies? copies," Dixon Woods of San Leon Trotsky-A New Vindica,tion Francisco wrote us. "Last * * * night after the Literature Com­ By George Clp,rke 99 Although Fourth Interna- mittee meeting, I sat down and Stalin's Frame-Up System .... By Josepb Hansen 105 tional is published in the very read the new FI from cover to citadel of world imperialism; cover. It's really a superb, all­ Downfall of Colonial Empires .. By David Adam III its real ties are with the work­ around theoretical and pro­ ing people everywhere. Our grammatic treatment of the The Test of Yugoslavia ...... By Gerard Blvcb 116 aim is to serve their 'theoret­ Negro question. Since our The Movement for American Independence ical needs in the struggle for headquarters here is in the cen­ socialism. Consequently, com­ ter of the Negro business dis­ By W illia1'lt P. Warde 122 ments from our readers abroad trict, we expect many new Arsenal of Marxism are particularly welcome, whe­ readers and contacts through ther critical or otherwise, as this issue." How Lenin Studied Marx ... By Leon Trotsky 126 they indicate how well we are A few days later, Dixon re­ succeeding in living up to our aim. ported that' a subscriber told since the NAtACP was holding Mason told us. "It's going to him this is "the first time she a convention in their city. receive the widest circulation Here's a letter from R. S. B. has gotten a rounded, theoret­ Here's Sid's report: "We think throughout the city that we of Ceylon we appreciated: ical picture of the Negro ques­ the sales .were phenomenal. can give it." "There is a dog-fight for FIs tion, and she especially praised The total was 102 copies sold A few weeks later, Howard here. So I will have to request the article 'Equality under the to delegates and five copies in wrote again:: "It's a very fine you to increase our bundle by Welfare State' for the way in a neighborhood store." That issue. All reports are unanim­ another 25 copies. The mem­ which it shows the develop­ was the. score a few days after ous on this and sales the first b~rs like to take the FI home mEmt of the Negro question ac­ getting their bundle. week reflected the enthusiasm. to chew. Then they file it or cording to the historical laws As a starter, Detroit sent for One comrade told me he has no try amateur binding. There is of capitalist development. And 125 extra copies. "We feel it trouble selling them. Just not one left of the J anuary­ this after years of 'education' can be of great aid to us here," shows the cover and asks for February issue and about five which she had in the Commun­ Literature Age n t Howard the quarter. But the gratifying comrades furious with me that ist Party. In that connection, I didn't give them copies. she thought the article 'Stalin­ Please send 251 more of that ism and Negro Intellectuals' issue a.s well as March-April. very much to the point." "The FI ha.s kept up a very The Pittsburgh comrades high standard, especially since doubled their usual order when Subscribe last August. We were of course they heard about the plans for Keep up with the Marxist interpretation of the big ve~ sorry that it had to be­ this issue and then after get­ events shaping our world by reading Fourth International co~e a bi-monthly. We do miss ting the bundle, Freddie For­ regularly. To make sure you don't miss a single copy, the Arsenal of Marxism. For rest sent a postcard: "This is­ fill out the coupon and mail it in today. most, it is the first time Trot­ sue of the FI is going like hot­ sky's articles become available. cakes. Please send us imme­ There are very few who c~n Fourth International diately 15 more copies. We afford to buy even borrow 116 University Place think the issue is great and the big works. hey are scarce New York 3, N. Y. hope it sells that well every­ here. Also I think that a re­ where." I want to subscribe to Fourth International. Enclosed statement of FI positions, Th~ &ston brunch of the is D $1.25 for six issues; D $2.50 for 12 issues. showing how well they have Socialist Workers Party at been vindicated by events is Name ....................... ~....................................................................... first thought 35 extra copies important. Do try to get in of the issue would do. Then Street ............................................................................................. some of Trotsky's articles. after thinking it over, they State .......................... ,............................................. Zone ........... There must be many never be­ decided they could do better fore published in English:" 1 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL VOLUME 11 JULY-AUGUST 1950 NUMBER 4 10 Years After the GPU Assassination Leon Trotsl~y ---- A New Vindication By GEORGE CLARKE Ten years after his assassination, the epic struggle of social gains of the revolution, the terror against the Bol­ Leon Trotsky to defend the heritage of Leninism against sheviks and the 'masses, the monstrous growth of inequality, the counter-revolutionary Kremlin bureaucracy, which the Moscow Trials, the purges. There were the capitulation ordered his death, approaches vindication. The ideas and 'to the British labor fakers and Chiang Kai-shek in the program of the great theorist and practitioner of the science Twenties and to Hitler in the Thirties, the betrayal of the of Marxism are being tested and tonfirmed in the crisis of Spanish civil war, the policies of social patriotism, class world Stalinism and especially in its most dramatic and collaboration, People's Fronts and the Hitler-Stalin alliance. positive expression, the Yugoslav revolution. But Trotsky above all had no illusion that this negative corroboration of his ideas would increase their popularity Trotsky did not-and could not-specifically predict the except among a few objective social thinkers-and they Yugoslav revolution, nor its collision and rupture with the were few indeed !-and among the sparse cadres of the new Soviet bureaucracy. What he foresaw was the dynamics of revolutionary internationalists. social forces and the main lines of their development. Stalinism, he never tired of reiterating, is a transitory Trotsky predicted that in the victory or defeat of the phenomenon born out of working class defeats and reaction. n:volutionary upsurge generated by the war the "Russian It is not a stage of social evolution comparable to slavery, Question" would be decided. He believed that the bureauc~ feudalism or capitalism. The bureaucracy is a can'cerous racy spawned in the backwash of capitalist reaction would growth on Soviet society, sapping its vital powers; obstruct­ be consumed in war, the most virulent form of that, reaction, ing its healthy growth, and nor a new class organically tied and with it would perish the last remaining conquests of to the development of the productive forces. October, the socialized property forms. Or, the proletarian Stalinism in the Soviet Union was and remains a crisis revolution resurgent in the West or the East would rein­ regime. The parasitism and plundering of the privileged vigorate the Russian masses to restore the wo~kers' state ruling caste clashes violently with the needs' and interests tn its robust original health by cutting away the unnatural of the, masses. Hence the ruthless, barbaric, totalitarian and hideous growths of Stalinism. dictatorship. The conflict inevitably spread to the world arena wh~re The Conditional Test of the War the Soviet bureaucracy ran afoul of the socialist and revo­ The conclusion of the wat apparently refuted this lutionary aspirations of the proletarians of other countiies. prognosis of Trotsky. The proletarian revolution had not The Communist workers viewed Stalinism as the banner­ triumphed anywhere in the capitalist world. Far from bearer and inheritor of the October Revolution.
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