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The Lesson of Spain 1 Stalinist Charges Against Trotsky 10 B

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The Lesson of Spain 1 Stalinist Charges Against Trotsky 10 B An Organ of Revolutionary Socialism Published Monthly by Socialist Appeal, 1664 W. 67th St., Chicago, 111. SUBSCRIPTION: One dollar for 24 issues Vol. II—No. 8 SEPTEMBER 1936 Price 5 Cents CONTENTS Leon Trotsky: The Lesson of Spain 1 Stalinist Charges Against Trotsky 10 B. M. F. Revolution and Counter-Revolution 3 Albert Goldman:^ Campaign For Socialism 1 1 James Burnham: For a Revolutionary Socialist Party 5 S. J. Weaver: The New Soviet Constitution \ Harold Draper: United Youth League 8 Haim Kantorovitch 16 THE LESSON OF SPAIN My &EON TMOTSKY NOTE: The revolting calumnies most recently spread by waged, as everybody knows, not only with military but the Stalinists against the author of the following article do also with political weapons. From a purely military not in the least diminish the esteem in which he is held by point of view, the Spanish revolution is much weaker militant Socialists or lessen the attention which the latter than its enemy. Its strength lies in its ability to rouse will pay to the penetrating observations on the significance the great masses to action. It can even take the army of the Spanish events which are contained in Trotsky's away from its reactionary officers. To accomplish this article. The APPEAL is proud to receive an article from it is only necessary seriously and courageously to advance the pen of this great revolutionary thinker. We wish to the program of the socialist revolution. assure the readers of the APPEAL that articles by Trotsky It is necessary to proclaim that, from now on, the land, will appear frequently in its pages. On page ten of this the factories and shops will pass from the capitalists into issue there appear important statements on the dastardly the hands of the peopje. It is necessary to move at once attempt of the Stalinist clique to put Trotsky in the class of toward the realization of this program in those provinces terrorists and Fascists. where the workers are in power. The Fascist army could not resist the influence of such a program for The Officers' Corps—The Role of the People's Front— twenty-four hours; the soldiers would tie their officers The Workers' Revolution hand and foot and hand them over to the nearest head- rjUROPE has become a harsh and terrible school for quarters of the workers' militia. But the bourgeois *u i 7 • : V. / --— ov»wl ^ ministers cannot accept such a program. Curbing the jM the proletariat 1'n one country after another events sodal revolutioll) they compel the workers and peasants have unfolded which exacting great and bloody sacrifices to m ten timeg as ^uch ^f thdr Qwn b]ood in ^ cMJ from the workers, have up to the present moment ended war And to crown ever thm these gentiernen expect 1*1 irif+T-f^f-vr -T f\v T»-ia at vi£* w tar>y-\4-irl"iO'r\t*i^l£it-i*-iio4-(lT-nlxr I -»»f_ , « • . ^ . - , . in victory for the enemies of the proletariat (Italy, Ger- to disarm the workers again after the victory and to many, Austria). The policy of the old labor parties force them to respect the sacred laws of private property. clearly shows how impossible it is for them to lead the Such is the true essence of the policy of the People's proletariat, how incapable they are of preparing for vic- Front. Everything else is pure humbug, phrases and lies! tory.-.. ,. , .. ,., ... - , • ... ,, Many supporters of the People's Front now shake their At the present time, while this is being written the heads reproachfuiiy at the ruiers of Madrid! Why civil war m Spam has not ye terminated. The workers didn>t th forese/all this? Wh didn>t th th* of the entire world feverishly await the news of the in time? Wh didn>t ^ take £ PnecKessar victory of the Spanish proletariat. If this victory, as we measures?" More than anywhere else, these criticisms TI *-*-M Itr h/~ir^o 1C* -inri-v*-! it- tin I I |-\ *i«r»«icc:oii"xr T/-I Ctixr- Trlf* * . , - . _, •' ' firmly hope, is won it will be necessary to say: the are being voiced in France, where, however, the policy workers have triumphed this time in spite of the fact of the leaders of the People's Front is in no way to be that their leadership did everything to bring about their distinguished from the policy of their Spanish colleagues. defeat. All the greater honor and glory to the Spanish In spite of the harsh lesson of Spain, one can say in working class! advance that the Leon Blum government will accomplish In Spain the Socialists and Communists belong to the no serious purge of the army. Why? Because the work- People's Front which already betrayed the revolution ers' organizations remain in a coalition with the Radicals once, but which, thanks to the workers and peasants, once and consequently are the prisoners of the bourgeoisie. again attained victory and in February created a "Repub- lican" government. Six months afterwards the "Repub- People's Militia Must Replace Officers' Corps lican" army took the field against the people. Thus it became clear that the People's Front government had It is naive to complain that the Spanish republicans or maintained the military caste with the people's money, the socialists or the communists forsaw nothing, let furnished them with authority, power and arms, gave something slip. It is not at all a question of the perspi- them command over young workers and peasants, thereby cacity of this or that minister or leader, but of the general facilitating the preparations for a crushing attack on the direction of the policy. The workers' party which enters workers and peasants. into a political alliance with the radical bourgeoisie, by that fact alone renounces the struggle against capitalist People's Front Curbs -Social Revolution militarism. Bourgeois domination, that is to say, the More than that: ever, now, in the midst of civil war, maintenance of private property of the means of produc- the People's Front government does everything in its tion. is inconceivable without the support of the ex- power to make victory doubly difficult. A civil war is ploiters by the armed forces. The officers' corps repres- 2 SOCIALIST APPEAL ents the guard of capital. Without this guard the bour- you have either become a complete idiot or else you are geoisie could not maintain itself for a single day. The consciously deceiving the working masses. selection of the individuals, their education and training "But we've got to have an army," repeat the socialist make the officers as a distinctive group uncompromising and communist leaders, "because we must defend our enemies of socialism. Isolated exceptions change nothing. democracy and with it the Soviet Union against Hitler!" That is how things stand in all bourgeois countries. The After the lesson of Spain it is not difficult to foresee danger lies not in the military braggarts and demagogues the consequences of this policy for democracy as well as who openly appear as fascist; incomparably more menac- for the Soviet Union. Once they have found a favorable ing is the fact that at the approach of the proletarian re- moment, the officers' corps, hand in hand with the dis- volution the officers' corps becomes the executioner of solved Fascist leagues, will assume the offensive against the proletariat. To eliminate four or five hundred reac- the working masses, and, if victorious, will crush the tionary agitators from the army means to leave every- miserable remnants of bourgeois democracy and extei^l thing basically as it was before. The officers' corps in their hands to Hitler for a common struggle against the which is concentrated the centuries-old tradition of en-, U.S.S.R. slaving the people must be dissolved, broken, crushed in The articles appearing in Populaire and L'Humanite its entirety, root and branch. It is necessary to replace on the events in Spain fill one with rage and disgust. the troops in the barracks commanded by the officers' These people learn nothing. They do not want to learn. caste with the people's militia, that is, with the demo- They consciously shut their eyes to the facts. The prin- cratic organization of the armed workers and peasants. cipal lesson for them is that it is necessary at all costs There is no other solution. But such an army is incom- to maintain the "unity" of the People's Front, that is patible with the domination of exploiters big and small. to say, unity with the bourgeoisie and friendship with Can the republicans agree to such a measure? Not at Daladier. all. The People's Front government, that is to say, the Daladier and the Generals government of the coalition of the workers with the bourgeoisie, is in its very essence a government of capitu- Unquestionably Daladier is a great "democrat." But lation to the bureaucracy and the officers. Such is the can one doubt for a moment that side by side with the great lesson of the events in Spain, now being paid for official work in Blum's ministry, he is working unofficial- with thousands of human lives. ly in the general staff of the officers' corps? There one finds serious people who look facts in the face, who do Defense of Republic is Defense of Capitalism not get drunk on hollow rhetoric the way Blum does. These people are prepared for every eventuality. No The political alliance of the working class leaders with doubt Daladier and the military leaders are coming to the bourgeoisie is disguised as the defense of the "repub- an understanding with respect to the necessary measures lic." The experience of Spain shows what this defense to take in case the workers take the road toward re- is in actuality.
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