The New------NTERNATIONAL

Ups uncl Downs 01 the Labor Party Movement -- A Survey The New----------- NTERNATIONAL 8adoglio plus Sforza plus Stalin Second Stage Opens in Italy By Max Sltaclttman The ~Good Neighbor' Goes to Arabia By Tlte Editor The Politics of Technocracy By Paul Temple Spain,1936 Stalin's Prisons By Miriam Gould 8y Anton Ciliga Art of War -- Ancient and Modern 8y Walter Jason SINGLE COpy ZOe ONE YEAR $1.50 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Jusl Published! A Monthly Organ of Revolutionary Marxil... Vol. X No.4, Whole No. 85 PLENTY FOR ALL Published monthly by the New International Publishing Co., 114 West 14th Street, New York, 11, N. Y. Telephone: CHelsea 2-9681. Subscription rates: $1.50 per year; bundles, 14c for five copies and The Meaning of Socialism up. Canada and foreign: $1.75 per year; bundles, 16c for five and up. Entered as second-class matter July 10, 1940, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March S, 1879. By ERNEST LUND Editor: MAX SHACHTMAN A. Populnr Presentation 01 the TABLE OF CONTENTS Socialut Y ieu1point Notes of the Month: UPS AND DOWNS OF THE LABOR PARTY Why There Is an Age of Plenty M 0 VEMEN T ---------------------------------- ----------------------------- 99 IMPERIALISM BY ANY OTHER NAME ______________ 104 Why There Is Poverty in This Age of Plenty Articles: Who Controls the Wealth Labor Produces THE SECOND STAGE OPENS IN ITALY Why There Are Rich and Poor By Max Shachtman ________________________________________________ 106 SPAIN, 1936-A STUDY IN SOVIETS What an Equitable Society Is By Miriam Gould ------------------________________________________ 109 ART OF WAR-ANCIENT AND MODERN How It Can Ie Achieved By JV alter Jason ---------------- ---------------------__________________ 113 Socialism as the Hope of Humoalty A TOTALITARIAN FANTASY-II By Paul Temple -----------------------______________________________ 117 IN STALIN'S PRISONS-IV Ernest Lund has prOVided, In this pamphlet, an indis By A. C iliga ______________________________________________________________ 12 2 pensable instrument for revolutionary socialist agita CHINA UNDER THE STALINISTS-III By Ria Stone --------____________________________________________________ 126 tion. Avoiding the use of technical terminology, and confining himself to a simple and forceful exposition of th basic ideas of Marxism, he has written a pam phlet that any worker can read and understand. Subscribe NoUJ to Sixty Pag.. 10 Cents per Copy Se.... Cents per Cop, in lund"s .f Five or M ... THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Published by the SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $1.50 per Year WORKERS PARTY OF THE UNITID STATIS $1.00 for Six Month. 114 W flit 14t1s Street New York City and Foreign: $1.75 per Year $1.25 Six Month. New Yo. 11# N~ Y. Name ______________________________________________________________________ _ I enclose ________________ for ________ copies of PLENTY FOR Add ress ___________________________________________________________________ _ ALL. City ---------------__ ________________________ _ State______________________ . Name -________________________________________________ --- --- ---- -- ------ ---------- Make sure that you receive every issue of The New Add ress----------------------.-----.------- ---... ------ ----------------- ------- --- International for the year 1943 by SUBSCRIIING AT ONCE! City ___________________________________________ -_Stotf': ---------~ ______________ --- THE NEW INTERNATIONAL A Monthly Organ of Revolutionary Marxism VOLUME X APRIL, 1944 NUMBER 4 such a Labor Party, or, more accurately, the decisive elements in a Labor Party,' adopt as their own the fighting program of revolutionary socialism. NOTES OF THE MONTH Meanwhile? Should the revolutionists refuse to support a Labor Party unless and until it has adopted a fully correct pro gram, refuse to support it because its program is reformist? This does not follow. Where the Labor Party represents a gen Ups and Down. of th. uine step forward, a break with capitalist politics, a means whereby the class independence of the workers can be ex Labor Party Movement pressed politically, it is entirely correct-more, it is impera tively necessary-for the revolutionary vanguard to support it, What would be a Labor Party to support it on the basis of its own program and in spite of of the American workers, worthy of the name? the reformist progra'm of the Labor Party. If one is not inhibited by the nominal similarity with the Does it follow that the revolutionists should give such sup British or Belgian or Australian Labor Parties, that is, by the port to any and every political group formed by workers or mysticism of words, there are no limitations placed in advance calling itself "Labor," regardless of any other consideration, upon the revolutionary development of such a party. We have such as its program, for example? The Marxists have a "maxi known parties bearing the name "Labor Party" which were mum" requirement for working class politics-a revolutionary reformist through and through but, as in the case of the Social program. A party that does not have a revolutionary program Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) of Russia and, for a merits the support of the working class only if it meets two time, the Norwegian Labor Party, there have also been revo minimum requirements: that it be organized separately from lutionary parties with that name. The character of a party is the capitalist parties and run its own independent candidates; determined not by its name-not in the first or even second and that it be the political machine of the organized working place-but primarily by its program, its leadership and the ex class. This is still far from a revolutionary socialist workers' tent to which the leadership carries out the program. How party, such as corresponds to the real needs of the working ever important other factors may be-for example, the organ class, and is -capable of dealing with the great political and izational structure-they cannot be put on the same plane of social crisis of our time. But it is the workers organized politi decisiveness as the program. cally as a class, separately from the capitalist parties; it is a Labor Party and Marxian Party workers' party, even though, by virtue of its reformist pro The Marxian socialists are of course the proponents and gram, it is a middle class workers' party. builders of a revolutionary party. Throughout the world, It must be added that it is not a reformist workers' party the organized Marxists are only a tiny minority of the work in the same way as, say, the German Social-Democratic Party. ing class. In the United States, their situation is complicated It is a special kind of reformist party. It is-that is, it should by the fact that they function within a proletariat that has be-constituted by the trade unions, based upon them, con had virtually no socialist political education and is still tied trolled by them. The trade unions embrace all political opin to the political parties of capitalism. The problem of build ions. Their control of the Labor Party makes it an arena in ing up a revolutionary party that speaks for substantial sec which the revolutionizing of the party (again, more accu tions of the working class is directly connected with the prob rately, of the decisive elements in the party) may take place; lem of breaking the allegiance of that class to the bourgeois consequently, an arena in which the Marxian vanguard can parties and setting it in motion as a politically independent and must function. class. T·he solution of the latter problem leads to the solution The mil1imum conditions that. must be fulfilled before a of the former. The key to solving the second problem, today, Labor Party is worthy of that name are thus indicated. Given in the United States, lies in the struggle for an independent these minimum conditions, working class support, critically Labor Party with a militant dass program. rendered, is entirely justified. This is the fundamental ap A workers' party, to be effective, must not only have the proach of the Workers Party to the problem of the struggle support of millions of workers, but must act on the basis of for a Labor Party in the United States. the boldest and most radical program of our time, the pro Tactics in the Concrete Situations gram of revolutionny socialism. Such a program, consistently worked out, is the foundation stone of the Workers Party. It However, there -is no Labor Party in the country that seeks to have this program adopted by the majority of the ·meets these conditions. There is a growing dissatisfaction and American workers. Its campaign for the formation of a Labor disillusionment with the Democratic and Republican Parties Party by the trade unions is essentially a campaign for this among the workers. There is a growing sentiment for inde program. But, just as some time will elapse between now and pendent political action by labor, or by labor in combination the time a representative Labor Patty is established by organ with the farmers and other middle-class elements. There are ized labor, so some time will elapse between then and the time even many unions which have adopted resolutions commit- ting them to the formation of a Labor Party, but which have same sphere, but part of it nevertheless. The ALP battle was gone no further than the word. There is also the American fought not only at the polls, but in the unions. Its outcome Labor Party in New York, the recently formed Michigan Com was affected by the situation in the unions, and in turn af monwealth Federation, and groups of varying strength that fects that situation. It had a direct connection with the future have been formed to establish something like an ALP in other of a real Labor Party development in New York and affected states. There is the CIO's Political Action Committee under the fate of a Labor Party movement nationally. What course the chairmanship of Sidney Hillman, with its tentative plan should the revolutionists have taken? This is not an academic, to call a national convention this year.

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