R esults of the Elections and the People's Front

BY EARL BROWDER

I

The 56th Convention of the A. F. of L. J ACK STACHEL

The Negro People and the Elections JAMES W. FORD •

Lenin-Thirteen Years After A. MARKOFF

The Crisis in the Socialist Party (Conclusion) WM. Z. FOSTER R eview of the Month A. B. • Book R eview HARRY GANNES •

TWE:'\TY CE:-\T') • CHANGE THE WORIID! MICHAEL GOLD

ALMOST anyone ought to get a real kick out of reading this collection. The old Mike Gold spirit oozes all through it. If you have missed the warmth and fervor of his writings, then here is the book you want. It contains selections that should please everybody's taste. Almost everything is in the book, from baseball to barricades, from vi~ions of Marx to nightmares of Mussolini, from the miners of Pees to the mil­ lionaires of Pittsburgh, from Moscow's subway to Henry Ford's inferno. It's an album of the exciting big and little events of this decade. Not only its contents, but jacket, binding, design, and even its price-all are nothing short of spectacular. And be sure to read the elegant foreword that Robert Forsythe has written for this volume!

272 pages, $1.39 • MEMOS: Have you read these new books? At the rate they're going they'll soon be out of print: REVOLT ON THE CLYDE by William Gallacher-$2.50 KARL MARX: SELECTED WORKS VOLUME 1-$2.25 WORLD POLITICS by R. Palme Dutt-$2.oo WAR OUR HERITAGE by Lash and Wechsler-$o.5o • Order from your bookshop or from WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS P. 0. Box 148, Sta. D. New York City VOL. XVI, NO. JANUARY, 1937 'Jhe COMMUNIST

A MAGAZINE OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MARXISM-LENINISM PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE U.S.A.

CONTENTS

Review of the Month A. B. 3

The Results of the Elections and the People's Front . EARL BROWDER •

The 56th Convention of the A. F. of L. JACK STACHEL

The Negro People and the Elections JAMES W. FORD •

Lenin-Thirteen Years After A. MARKOFF 74

The Crisis in the Socialist Party WILLIAM Z. FOSTER

Book Reviews . HARRY GANNES • 93

Frontispiece drawn by D. Charles

Entered as second class matter November 2, r927, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, r879. Send checks, money orders and correspondence to THE CoMMUNIST, P.O. Box r48, Sta. D (50 E. r3th St.), New York. Subscription rates: $2.00 a year; $r.oo for six months; foreign and Canada $2.50 a year. Single copies 20 cents. ~209

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21, 21, 1924 1924

April April 2, 2, 1870 1870

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V. V. 1. 1. LENIN LENIN REVIEW OF THE MONTH

The Legacy of IgJ6 and the Tasks of th« New Year. Make It a Year of Great Alivances. Finance Capital and the Two-Party System. The Cottclusions of Browder's Report. The New York Times Reveals a Position. What Is Roosevelt's Middle Course? Pressure by Independent Struggle Versus "Pressure" by Surrender. Objective Conditions and Political Perspec­ tives. Communist Party Plenum and Program of Action. Capital- ist Reaction Reorganizes for Fight. The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. W.P.A. Is a Danger Signal. Anniversary of Lenin's Death. Fol­ low in Footsteps of Lenin. Study Leninism and Recruit Party Members. Party Units and Independent Actions

HE New Year-1937-can be made of fascism and war have become less T a year of great advance and ac­ acute. Nothing would be more dis­ complishment for the forces of de­ astrous than to fall under the spell of mocracy, peace and progress in this a false sense of security. A mere glance country as well as in the rest of the at events, at home and abroad, in world. Despite the many shortcomings the closing weeks of 1936, should be and inadequacies, the struggle of the enough to dispel any such feelings. masses during the past year against the At home, the forces of reaction are offensive of the forces working for speedily and skillfully reorganizing fascism and war has created a solid their ranks in preparation for new basis for a serious move forward. It attacks. The Chambers of Commerce is our duty, as well as opportunity, to and the National Association of take advantage of this favorable situ­ Manufacturers, the backbone and ation. Indeed, we cannot afford to driving force of reaction in this coun· miss it. try, have already given clear indica­ It was in this spirit that the plenary tions that they intend to drive forward session of the Central Committee of toward the same old objectives while the Communist Party, held December employing for a while different tac· 4-6 in New York City, reviewed the tics. And the Roosevelt Administra· results of the elections and mapped tion-true to its middle-of-the-road out a course of action for the months nature-has also given some fresh in­ to come. dications that it is very susceptible to Needless to say that this spirit does this new drive and pressure of the not arise from any such feeling as forces of reaction. The workers and that the enemies of the people have farmers on the W.P.A. have already become quiescent or that the dangers felt the first shocks of this offensive. 4 THE COMMUNIST Abroad, the fascist and militarist working class and the toiling popula­ powers-Germany, Italy and Japan­ tion generally tied down to the chariot have joined forces in open agreement, of bourgeois politics. collaborating actively in Spain and in No wonder finance capital is so the Far East (China), seeking to build loath to part with this traditional up a bloc of all fascist and war­ two-party system. making forces against democracy and The plenary meeting of the Central the Soviet Union on a world scale. Committee of the Communist Party The legacy of 1936 is therefore one reached the conclusion that this two­ of increasing danger of fascism and party system emerged from the elec­ war; yet also one of increasingly more tions seriously damaged and weak· favorable opportunities for a united ened. This was the conclusion sub­ and effective struggle against these mitted to the plenum by Comrade dangers. The working class of this Browder in his report and which the country, and ,the American people plenum adopted as its own. generally, can play a decisive role in The New York Times reaches a dif­ these struggles. In the judgment of ferent conclusion. According to this the Central Committee plenum of mouthpiece of finance capital, "the the Communist Party, the American result achieved on November 3 can people headed by the working class scarcely give much satisfaction to those will indeed play such a decisive role who cherish the ambition of creating by building up their own independent a really formidable third party". power on the economic and political (Editorial, Dec. 13, 1936.) Whether fields, by moving in broad forma­ it can or cannot, in the judgement tions to the People's Front, to the of the Times, the fact is that the re­ Farmer-Labor Party. sult of November 3 did give much The year 1937 should prove to be satisfaction to the Farmer-Labor and one of great advances for the re­ progressive forces of this country. It born Farmer-Labor democracy of this did give much satisfaction to those country. "who cherish the ambition of creat­ ing" a formidable People's Front party -such a formidable party, in fact, that T WAS a foregone conclusion that may from the outset emerge as a I finance capital will seek to repair second party, not a third, and that and reconsolidate the greatly damaged will in time become the first party. two-party system of this country. For The Times should not try to identify the capitalist class, this traditional its own feelings in the matter with two-party system was an unmixed those of the Farmer-Labor forces. blessing ever since it came into exist­ Especially revealing is the reason­ ence. It was this system that enabled ing of The New York Times; for it the capitalist class of the United discloses certain political attitudes of States to retain a virtual monopoly finance capital. And the reasoning of politics. And it was due in part to runs something like this: this system that the capitalists were " ... while the election resulted in a large able for such a long time to keep the net shift of votes from the Republican to REVIEW OF THE MONTH 5 the Democratic Party, it showed no deep was what Comrade Browder has made dissatisfaction with the traditional two-party convincingly clear in his report to the system-at· least so long as one of these plenum of the Central Committee. parties is led by a candidate as progressive in his views as is Mr. Roosevelt." (Ibid.) The masses voted in bulk for the can­ didates of the two old parties. But this No deep dissatisfaction with the tells only part of the story, the one traditional two-party system, says the that is so pleasing to finance capital. Times. But the known facts tell a dif­ But there is another part and one ferent story. Labor's Non-Partisan that is more significant for the future League, whose support of President political developments in this coun­ Roosevelt contributed greatly towards try. It is that the bulk of the Farmer­ the scope of his victory (if not to the Labor democracy rose to defeat victory itself), found it necessary to reaction in the elections and that the emphasize throughout the election success was achieved largely because campaign that it was not supporting new forces and movements were at the Democratic Party. Why? Because work. Forces and movements of a labor, and certainly large sections of clear-cut Farmer- Labor- progressive it, was deeply dissatisfied with the character, distinct from the Demo­ Democratic Party as well as with the cratic Party even though some of them Republican Party. are still within it, and moving in the President Roosevelt carried Minne­ direction of a People's Front party-a sota but the Democratic Party had to Farmer-Labor Party. This part of the withdraw its candidates for governor story the Times cannot be expected to and senate in favor of the Farmer­ tell and for the simple reason that Labor Party. In that state the Farmer­ this is exactly the movement that Labor Party scored the greatest vic­ finance capital wants to check. tory since it came into existence. This No less revealing is the qualifying party too had emphasized through­ remark of the Times that its assertion out the campaign that it was not sup­ (no deep dissatisfaction with the two­ porting the Democratic Party. Why? party system) holds good "at least so Because the Farmer-Labor democracy long as one of these p<;trties is led by a of Minnesota does not want the candidate as progressive in his views Democratic Party. as is Mr. Roosevelt". This reveals in The bulk of the Negro people part the reason for The New York voted for President Roosevelt. Will Times' support of Roosevelt in the the Times maintain that they also elections. A candidate at the head of voted confidence in the Democratic one of the capitalist parties "as pro­ Party and in the two-party system? gressive" as Roosevelt, in the expecta­ It is possible to bring many more tions of the Times, should tend to facts but these alone are sufficient to check the growth of an independent refute completely the assertion of the people's party. At least this is what Times that the election results showed finance capital wants a "progressive" no deep dissatisfaction with the tra­ candidate to accomplish in addition ditional two-party system. The situa­ to carrying out the aims and policies tion is not simple, of course. And this of the capitalist class. 6 THE COMMUNIST

Yet the objective situation, here strengthening of the capitalist system. and abroad, is not very favorable now, He steers no "middle course" between and is bound to become even less so, capitalism and socialism for between for the smooth working out of this these there is no middle. But he does sort of capitalist strategy. American try to find a middle course between labor and its allies will continue to the camp of extreme reaction and fas­ press with increasing insistence for cism, on the one hand, and the camp the realization of the people's man­ of democracy and progress, on the date in the elections. They will do so other. In its very nature, such a course on both the economic and political is inconsistent, contradictory, shifting fields. Despite the emergence (uneven) and highly susceptible to pressure, of American capitalist economy from especially from the camp of reaction. the economic crisis, there is still no Up to a certain point, the point evidence of the approach of a genuine where the future hegemony of finance boom. More important is the fact, capital becomes involved, the concrete which is beginning to be recognized actions of this middle course are likely universally, that "normal" capitalism to be determined by the relative in the United States must be prepared strength and militancy of the two to carry with it a permanent army of main contending camps-the camp unemployed of about ten million of progress and the camp of reaction. people and an agriculture in a state Whichever proves stronger and presses of chronic crisis. Barring the out­ harder (and the camp of progress will break of war, which would change have to press very hard) will succeed the situation radically, a new cyclical in securing more concessions. That's economic crisis will continue to ma­ why Comrade Browder insisted that it ture in the womb of the present re­ is vitally important that labor and its covery. allies seek to win the first post-elec­ All these facts and developments tion skirmish on the issue of W.P.A. make for class struggle. They con­ reductions. Instead of speculating on stitute the deep economic basis which whether Roosevelt will go · Right or compels the working class and its Left, organize and struggle and thus allies to organize and fight for better try to push him to the Left. conditions, for a higher standard of But, the argument is made, if Roose­ living, for systematic resistance to the velt is pressed to the Left, wouldn't offensive of capitalist reaction. that enable him to keep the masses In the face of this outlook, the tied down to his leadership and thus question is often asked: Will Presi­ to obstruct the growth of the People's dent Roosevelt incline to conciliate Front and the crystallization of a the people or will he seek truces with Farmer-Labor Party? Wouldn't that, reaction and the people's exploiters? in other words, justify the expecta­ Comrade Browder suggested that tions of The New York Times that there was no need to speculate on Roosevelt's "progressivism" will that. We know President Roosevelt's strengthen the two-party system and class position. It is capitalist. His con­ check the growth of an independent cern is with the preservation and party of the people? REVIEW OF THE MONTH 7 In answering this question, we must There is, of course, another con­ guard against oversimplifying a matter ception of "pressure". It is the one which is not at all simple. When we practiced by William Green at the say that Roosevelt's middle course is beginning of the first Roosevelt ad­ susceptible to pressure also from the ministration in the "truces" in auto Left (but especially from the Right), and steel, and which ended so dis­ it must be clearly understood what is astrously for labor. But this is no meant by pressure. By this is meant or­ pressure; it is surrender to the New ganized and independent actions by Deal which inevitably results in the the working class and its allies, by the victory of capitalist reaction. Farmer-Labor democracy of this coun­ From the foregoing it does not fol­ try. This means strong and powerful low that there is no danger that unions, especially in the basic indus­ Roosevelt's middle course will tend to tries-steel, in the first instance. It obstruct the growth of the People's means strong organization of the toil­ Front. On the contrary. Such danger ing farmers, the Negroes, the youth exists. and women, the middle classes. Or­ Theexpectations of The New York ganization-and daily struggle for the Times quite evidently rest upon immediate needs of the masses. It the known fact that the New Deal is means further independent political consciously seeking to retard the organization, program and action. At growth of the Farmer-Labor Party.. the present time, this calls for a uni­ Which means that we are dealing here fied legislative program for presen­ with a contest, a race, between the tation to the federal and state legisla­ Farmer-Labor forces, on the one hand, tures-a program worked out by and the New Deal, on the other. That national and state conferences of the race will not be won by the Farmer­ Farmer-Labor-progressive forces and Labor forces automatically. But it will backed by them. It means finally the be won, and a Farmer-Labor Party setting up of independent Farmer­ will come into existence, by indepen­ Labor-progressive blocs in the legisla­ dent organization and struggle for the tive bodies of the country. This is daily demands of th~ masses and by what is meant today by pressure upon steering a conscious course toward a the middle course. This and this national Fanner-Labor Party and a alone is able to exert effective pres­ People's Front government in the sure. Otherwise the people will be United ~tates. cheated of their success of Nov. 3· If this is agreed to, then it will be • • • clear that Roosevelt can be pressed to HE Communist Party, through its the Left, and full advantage taken T Central Committee plenum, has of his middle course, only by promot­ formulated a program of action, which ing the independent organization and is proposed to the labor movement action of the masses, only by pro­ and to the toilers generally, for the moting the development of the coming months. It is necessary now People's Front and the organization to bring this program to the widest of the Farmer-Labor Party. masses and to help organize them for 8 THE COMMUNIST the demands contained in that pro­ of whom had endorsed the program gram. of the Workers' Alliance before the It is a program calculated to help elections, has as yet seen fit publicly the people realize their election man­ to condemn the W.P.A. reductions date. and to support the struggles of the Again we must sound a note of W.P.A. people. warning. Capitalist reaction is taking Can the trade union movement no chances, nor is it quiescent. Less afford to see the W.P.A. workers than one month after it had been ad­ beaten? No, it cannot. Just let Big ministered a most telling blow, it has Business and Roosevelt feel that there already managed to reconstitute its will be little united resistance to bud­ basic forces and is now getting ready get-balancing at the expense of the for a new drive. In fact, it is already masses and to other demands of reac­ driving-:as the workers and farmers tion, and pretty soon the unions will on the W.P.A. will readily testify. begin to feel directly the heavy hand We refer to the plans of action of a new capitalist offensive. worked out by the National Associa­ In a few days, Congress will be in tion of Manufacturers, by the Cham­ session. Most vital measures will come bers of Commerce, by the bankers. up for consideration. Big Business is Stripped of the new verbiage, which on the job. But the Farmer-Labor and is intended to conceal the old aims, progressive forces are not yet on the these plans seek skillfully to bolster job. While many measures are being up the rebuilding of the Republican formulated by various unions and opposition in Congress, to check the other organizations, there is no uni­ growth of unionism in the basic in­ fied people's program of legislation dustries and to take the Roosevelt and no organized body to back it and Administration in tow-to win with fight for it. Roosevelt what they expected to win Labor's Non-Partisan League seems with Landon. to have gone to sleep. Yet this is pre­ In the face of this-is there a danger cisely the time for it to be developing of a Roosevelt compromise with these the utmost activity in unifying the sharks of Big Business? Of course forces of labor, farmers and all pro­ there is. Especially because the Far­ gressives for the serious legislative mer-Labor and progressive forces do tasks. not as yet present anywhere as near William Green and the A. F. of L. a united and consolidated front as seem to have put all their eggs in one Big Business does. What are we going basket-the Industrial Council headed to do about it? by Major Berry. And a mighty flimsy The W.P.A. reductions are the first thing this is, at least in its present danger signal. The workers and farm­ make up. Labor could no doubt de­ ers on the W.P.A. are showing an ef­ rive certain tangible benefits from fective resistance but the rest of the participation in this Council and its organized labor movement is very slow conferences provided definite condi­ in coming to their assistance. Neither tions were satisfied. One is~a unified William Green, nor John Lewis, both legislative program of labor which REVIEW OF THE MONTH 9 takes full care of the immediate needs groups for legislative and other polit­ and demands of the workers, which ical purposes. Of this William Green cannot be said of the program actually seems to be totally oblivious. Unfor­ adopted by the conference. Second, tunately he is not the only labor an independent political organization leader suffering from this disease. of labor and its allies to back up such And finally the unity of the Ameri­ a program. With these two main con­ can Federation of Labor. It is of the ditions satisfied, labor's participation highest significance that the organiz­ in the Berry Industrial Council might ing drive in steel is progressing rap­ be made of service to the working idly and that organizing drives in people. Even labor's collaboration in auto and textile are beginning to un­ this Council with the representatives fold. A strong industrial union in of the small businessmen could be steel, as well as in the other mass made an effective means for combat­ production industries, will go a long ing the trusts and monopolies if labor way towards halting and defeating the itself were politically organized and splitting tactics of the reactionaries. independent. It will also create a strong basis for the As it is, what do we have? The In­ advancement of the political inde­ dustrial Council has no governmental pendence of labor. But these vital power. It is an advisory body to ends--the unity and independence of Roosevelt. He may and he may not labor on the economic and political heed its advice. The program adopted fields-will not be an automatic Tesult by the Council is not adequate or of the organization of the unorgan­ satisfactory. And even this program, ized. A strong industrial union in steel vague and indefinite in most respects, will be an historic achievement. It has no organized backing of the po­ will materially shift the relation of litical forces of labor and its allies. class forces in this country in favor Under such conditions, this Council of labor, in favor of progress. But in may very well turn out to be a order to make it so, much more than maneuvering instrument in the hand organizing the unorganized is neces­ of the Roosevelt administration, an sary at the present time,. Hand in hand instrument with which to maneuver with the organizing drives should go for a compromise with Big Business, a an intensive educational campaign compromise at the expense of labor. for the principles of trade union Besides, where do the farmers come unity, efforts to reunite the A. F. of in, and the Negroes? There is no room L. must be made systematically and a for them on the Industrial Council. unification of labor and its allies for The Roosevelt Administration pre­ the legislative tasks must be under­ fers to "handle them" separately. This taken at once. may, or may not, be good politics for It is wrong, in our judgement, to Roosevelt, but it surely is no good say that first comes organizing the for labor. 'Vhether the toiling farmers unorganized and then-later (and and Negroes are on or off the Indus­ pcrhaps)-will come unity efforts and trial Council, labor is vitally inter­ independent political action. All ested in collaborating with these three must go hand in hand and at 10 THE COMMUNIST

the same time. Only thus will the or­ ing class and all oppressed to find the ganizing drive succeed permanently. road to the united and People's Only thus will the reactionary split­ Fronts. Years in which Lenin's closest ers be halted or, if not, defeated. Only collaborator and most loyal pupil­ thus will labor and its allies come to­ Stalin-has grown into the beloved gether and make sure that their elec­ leader of the world revolutionary tion wishes are realized. movement and of the exploited and The program of action adopted by persecuted of all capitalist and im­ the Central Committee plenum of the perialist countries. Communist Party outlines the way in A long stretch of time full of fate­ which the struggle of the people ful events. Yet Lenin's memory shines should proceed. In the industries and brighter and brighter with every year on the economic field generally. On that passes. The greatness and correct­ the political and legislative field. And ness of his teachings, which Stalin has in the struggle for peace. This pro­ done so much to further develop, are gram meets the needs of the people. magnified aJ?.d confirmed with every Make it their program. Their pro­ new turn in the development of the gram of demands and their program world and in the struggles of pro­ of action. gressive and forward looking human­ ity. We bare our heads to the bright T ENIN's anniversary occurs this memory of the greatest of the great. L month. On January 21, the To the great and warm-hearted hu­ peoples of all lands and nations will man. To the teacher, leader and work­ commemorate the thirteenth anniver­ ing class revolutionist. To the founder sary of Lenin's death. They will fit­ of Leninism-the only road to the tingly commemorate the death of the liberation of mankind. greatest teacher and leader they ever had and they will rededicate them­ * selves to the historic struggle for the TUDY Leninism and recruit mem­ realization of his teachings-the libera­ S bers into the Communist Party. tion of humanity from oppression, in­ Without a Communist Party there is justice, reaction and war. no Leninism; and without Leninism Thirteen years since Lenin ceased there can be no Communist Party. to breathe. Thirteen fateful years. Lenin's teachings have profound Years that have seen the victory of meaning and conquering force when socialism in the Soviet Union and its used as a guide to action by a party growth into a mighty power for peace of the working class fighting for social­ and progress. Years that have also ism. And a party of the working class seen the coming to power of bloody will not be truly such, and will not fascism in Germany, Hitlerism, the be fighting effectively for socialism, enemy of mankind. Years in which unless it is guided by the teachings of the guiding genius of Leninism, and Lenin. of the Communist International which Recruit members into the Party Lenin founded, has helped the work- and study Leninism. REVIEW O.F THE MONTH 11

Lenin's teachings embrace all Party units-the shop nucleus, the phases of social life. Yet the heart of street nucleus, the industrial unit, the them ail is the teaching on the role branch. On these we must focus our of the Communist Party. Because attention today. And as we do so, we without a Communist Party Lenin's will find that these basic Party units teachings cannot be realized. do not function effectively, or with The last plenum of the Communist insufficient effectiveness, as organized Party Central Committee has dealt centers of Communist leadership in with several important questions of the Party's mass campaigns. The elec­ Party building: recruiting, Party press, tion campaign brought to light many leading personnel, the work of Party such weaknesses evident in all fields of units and sections, the mobilization Party work. Individual members of of the Party for its mass campaign­ these units are doing useful and im­ for the struggle against reaction and portant mass work. But the units as war. such are rarely, and insufficiently, in Comrades Browder and Foster, in the picture. dealing with these questions at the The results of this serious weakness plenum, proceeded from Lenin's teach­ are manifold. The Party is unable to ings on the Party and its role and ap­ mobilize its maximum strength for the plied these teachings to our present mass struggles. This means that the conditions and tasks. This is what masses themselves are not mobilized Lenin and Stalin taught us to do. to maximum strength and fighting Master your theory. Study the peculiar ability: Which, in tum, means a weak­ and specific conditions of your work. ening of the working class front Then apply your theory to these spe­ against the camp of capitalist reaction. cific and peculiar conditions. A second result of weak Party units The concrete and specific problem is that we find ourselves handicapped facing us is how faster to increase our for the systematic carrying out of forces to meet the growing tasks and independent Party actions in the in­ how better to organize our forces for terests of the masses. We should, the carrying out of our mass today, pay special attention to the campaigns. elimination of this second result. For Following Lenin's principles, we if we don't, here are the possible con­ must center our attention at once on sequences: the work of the Party units. A Com­ \Ve will fail to provide that stimu­ munist Party is not merely a con­ lus and pressure which are so indispen­ glomeration of individuals holding sable at the present time for the un­ the same views. The Party is a highly folding and deepening of mass strug­ integrated organism, made up of or­ gles by existing mass organizations ganizations on the basis of democratic and united front formations. centralism, with each member being Second, we will not be able to part of a basic organization-the unit Leep the Party's revolutionary face -the foundation of the Party. always before the masses, to bring Party building therefore begins with forth the Party's independent line, not the building and strengthening of the alone in resolutions but also in the 12 THE COMMUNIST daily struggle of the masses for their certain harmful practical conclusions. immediate demands. And, thirdly, we One is the old sectarian inclination shall find it difficult to build the Com­ to retire into ourselves and to revert munist Party itself into a mass party, to the mere abstract preachment of into the recognized revolutionary van­ Communism. The other, in apparent guard of the American proletariat and contradiction to the first, tends to its allies. conclude that the present job is to Without building live and active build the mass movements and mass Party units as centers of Communist struggles and only when this has been leadership in the mass struggles, we accomplished will it be time to bring cannot build a mass Communist Party. forth the Party's face and to build What is the practical conclusion? the Party. Central attention to the building of Both these conclusions flow from the Party units. This today means the same opportunistic premise that that, as soon as ·we have formulated mass work and Party building cannot our immediate political tasks and mass be done at the same time, that united campaigns, we proceed (1) to mobilize front mass struggles are incompatible the Party units for these tasks ideologi­ with the simultaneous winning of the cally and organizationally, and (2) to masses for the Party's independent line mobilize them in a twofold manner: and for Communism. It is a premise (a) for the carrying out of specific which has nothing in common with activities in mass organizations and Leninism and with the historic de­ united front formations and (b) for cisions of the Seventh World Congress the simultaneous carrying out of in­ explained and interpreted by Com­ dependent actions as organizations of rade Dimitroff. And despite the appar­ the Communist Party. ent contradiction between the two No blueprints are necessary or pos­ (one says: "Party-first" while the sible. Great flexibility and concrete­ other claims: "mass work-first"), both ness are necessary. But herein lies one lead to the same result-the weaken­ of the keys to the further advance and ing of the Communist Party as the revolutionization of the working class revolutionary vanguard of the Amer­ and its allies. ican proletariat. Certain wrong ideas will have to be We naturally reject both these con­ overcome. Comrade Browder has shown clusions. And the Central Committee in his report how it should be done. Plenum unanimously adopted Com­ One of these ideas is that the spread­ rade Browder's report which maintains: ing out of the Party's activities to the First, that without a strong Com­ broad field of class struggle and of munist Party, active in the mass move­ the People's Front movement "in­ ments, fighting for the united and evitably" necessitates a slackening of People's Front and carrying on simul­ the activities of the Party units and a taneous independent actions in the in­ blurring, if not hiding, of the Party's terests of the masses, there can be no face and of its independent line. From real advance and revolutionization of this wrong and opportunist premise, the American working class ·and its there appears to be a tendency to draw allies. REVIEW OF THE MONTH

Second, that without the Party units belongs to the Party. Because the participating actively, and as such, in masses have not seen to· the same de­ the Party's mass campaigns, with mass g-ree the independent activities of the organizations and independently, the Party units which would make it con­ Party cannot build itself into a strong vincingly necessary for a Communist mass party capable of leading the sympathizer actually to join the Party struggle for the socialist revolution (the unit). Because, finally, the masses and socialism. have not seen to the same degree the Since the Ninth Party Convention revolutionary and Communist face of we have established ties of understand­ the Party units which it is necessary ing and sympathy with hundreds of for them to see in order to become thousands, if not millions, of toilers. convinced that the Party's value in We have achieved this because we their struggle for immediate economic have proven our value and indispen­ and political demands flows precisely sibility in the building of the unions from the fact that it is a revolutionary, and in the economic struggles of the a Leninist, party. workers, in the struggle against reac­ Proceeding from the teachings of tion and for democracy and progress, our immortal leader, Lenin, we will in the building of the Farmer-Labor most successfully realize the decisions Party, in the struggle for peace, for of our Party's plenum by clearly real­ the interests of the toiling farmers, izing that: unemployed, Negro people, youth and 1. To mobilize the Party for its women. Our mass policies and activi­ mass campaigns means to mobilize ties, notably in the election campaign, the Party units-for united front and have convinced wide masses that the independent mass activities. It means Communist Party is needed, that "it building the basic units as true cen­ belongs". But we have not been as ters of Communist Party leadership successful in convincing these same among the masses. masses (or considerable portions of 2. In all the daily struggles of the them) that it is they who belong to masses for better conditions, to keep the Communist Party. And why is that clearly before them t.P,e Party's revo­ so? Because the masses have not seen lutionary face and independent politi­ to the same degree the value, role and cal line. importance of the Communist Party Forward to the realization of the ?tnits to which one must belong if one plenum's decisions. A.B. THE RESULTS OF THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT

BY EARL BROWDER

wo features today typify the have been thought possible before T world situation and give point to without general hostilities. This is all of the life ~nd death issues facing universally recognized. Our reaction­ the people of all lands. One is the situ­ ary capitalist newspapers are explain­ ation in Spain, where the concentrated ing to us that this is the division of forces of world fascism wage their the world between communism and desperate and bloody war of extermi­ fascism, and they call for a new camp, nation against democracy, against an presumably to be composed of the embattled people heroically laying Americas, opposed to the two sides down their lives to defend the prin­ that divide Europe and the other con­ ciples of self-government and progress. tinents. But this slogan that the issue The other feature is the Congress of is communism or fascism, varied at Soviets which has just had presented times to socialism or fascism, or Marx- to it the new Stalinist Constitution ism or fascism, hides the most essen­ representing the high mark of human tial fact. The fascist nations rally to progress throughout all history. We their active support the most reaction­ see Soviet democracy reaching into the ary circles within all the non-fascist daily life of 170,ooo,ooo people, firmly countries and prepare civil war there­ butressed in a socialist economy which in, while the Soviet Union, the land of for the first time translates the right to socialism, led by the Communist life, liberty and the pursuit of happi­ Party, rallies all the anti-fascist, peace­ ness into terms of the guaranteed right loving nations and all progressive cir­ to work, to education and to leisure cles . in all lands to the defense of for every citizen. democracy, progress and peace. The world is divided more openly All countries outside of the Soviet and consciously than at any previous Union are fields of bitter struggle for time into two camps, with the pros­ dominance between the forces of de­ pect of a new world war more imme­ mocracy and fascism. In Germany, diate and menacing than would ever Italy, Japan and their satellites, reac­ tion and fascism are ascendant and

Report delivered to the Plenum of the carry on civil war against the people Central Committee of the Communist Party through the government. They are of the U.S.A., held Dec. 4-6, 1936. rapidly extending their domestic 14 THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT aggression across frontiers to other disturbances. British imp€rialism until lands: Italy in Ethiopia, Japan in a few years ago boasted that it did not China, Germany and Italy in Spain. even need to arm its police to keep They are driving toward a world war its starving workers in perfect order. for imperialist conquest and against But today the British Empire is the democratic rights of the peoples shaken by the love affair of its King. of the world and their national inde­ Of course, all of this romantic non­ pendence. sense which the masses are fed covers In France the rise of the People's something very real, very significant Front halted fascism at home and and very dangerous for the world sit­ threw French governmental influence uation. All of this is the development on the side of peace and progress, al­ to the rapidly approaching struggles though the serious hesitations of the in Britain to decide which side Eng­ Blum government became constantly and is going to be on in the next world more dangerous. French fascism was war. And the fact that the struggle stopped but not routed and threatens around the King has become so sharp to make a new offensive. and shaken the whole empire should In Britain a reactionary administra­ prove to us, if it doesn't to those who tion, playing with sympathy to the read the news stories, that this affair fascist offensive, is able to continue is not about the domestic arrange­ such policies through democratic ments of Edward VIII, but about the forms, despite the anti-fascist tenden­ disposition of guns and ships and air­ cies of the British population, due to planes, and the destiny of the peoples the ineptness of the Labor Party lead­ of the British Empire. ership and its failure to fight for a Now let us turn to the conference consistent peace policy. The first de­ of the American republics now going cisive struggles to determine the pre­ on in Buenos Aires. It shows how sharp­ dominant position in the international ly the whole world now feels the com­ line-up are now maturing. I must ing war and begins to take up an atti­ mention that great item of interna­ tude toward the basic issues. The tional news which every day occupies speech made by Secretary of State from five to ten pages in the daily Hull, at the Inter-American Peace newspapers, the constitutional crisis Conference, is of great significance. in Great Britain. I hope you will par­ It was a contribution to the mobiliza­ don me if I do not go into the details tion of the anti-fascist forces of the of the love affairs of King Edward. world in the struggle against war, for But it is of the utmost importance the maintenance of peace, not only in when we see the greatest empire of the the Americas, but everywhere. With world, on the territories of which the the fascists on the offensive every­ sun never sets, shaken by the affairs of where, with these fascist forces grow­ the heart of two people. British impe­ ing bolder and becomingvery arrogant rialism boasted of its solidity, its un­ in some of the South American re­ shakableness and indeed had im­ publics represented in Buenos Aires, pressed all of us with the absence after it is no small thing when the bour­ long years of crisis of serious inner geois spokesman for the United States 16 THE COMMUNIST government makes an appeal to the this position there is already an appeal peoples of the world to organize to the masses of the people for organ­ people's peace movements to control ized support, not only governmental their governments. support, but mass support in every On the first plank of Secretary Hull country to the struggle for peace. we can declare our complete agree­ The tremendous world significance ment. And we can welcome such a call of the present struggle in Spain arises which will be heard and listened to from its position as focus point for by the peoples of every country where the whole world struggle. Fascism had they are not absolutely cut off by counted Spain as one of its conquests. fascist dictatorship. Even there it will The democratic victory of the estab­ penetrate and find a response. There lishment of a Spanish Republic was are, of course, points in Secretary thought to have been smashed and Hull's program where we will have subverted from within due to the dis­ to register some ~ifferences of opinion unity of the democratic forces. But as when he puts forward the plank the call for the People's Front to de­ of American neutrality as the key to feat fascism issued by the Seventh peace. We know the falseness of neu­ \Vorld Congress of the Communist In­ trality. \Ve know how it has played ternational was greeted with mass re­ into the hands of the war-makers in sponse in Spain, second only, if not America and throughout the world. equal, to that in France. The fascists But even on this point we have to note were overwhelmingly defeated in the some progress in the direction of a real Spanish elections of February, 1936. peace policy in Hull's speech. The The People's Front was victorious and neutrality that he put forward is not established itself in control of the gov­ the simple neutrality of the past, of ernment. Fascism had lost Spain. It withdrawal from world affairs, of iso­ launched the murderous uprising lation. It begins to have a new con­ against Spanish democracy in July, tent, not clearly defined as yet, but with the inspiration and support of containing within it the possibilities Hitler and Mussolini, as a desperate of developments toward an active attempt to recover its lost position. peace policy for America which will The international fascist intervention strengthen the peace forces through­ in Spain is the first point of the gen­ out the world. eral world war being prepared by fas­ The program as laid down by Sec­ cism against democracy everywhere. retary Hull is very tentative and is not The chief task of the day for all of yet crystallized. As it becomes crystal­ progressive humanity is the support of lized, we will of course find many Spanish democracy. In Spain, while points in which we have to distinguish we are meeting, we see new victories our position very sharply. But the for the People's Front forces and at main significance of this speech is that the same time we get the news of the America is more and more emerging landing of large-scale armies of in­ as the greatest power of the capitalist vasion from Germany and Italy. I world on the side of peace, and against don't think I have to emphasize to the fascist war-makers, and that in this meeting the significance of this, THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT what it means for our tasks in carry­ I. The Defeat of Reaction zn the ing out the campaign in support of November Elections Spain, everywhere in America. We cannot permit the invasion of fascist At the Ninth Convention of our forces in Spain to throw the tide of Party in June, in charting our course battle against Spanish democracy. for the elections, we established that, More than ever now, we must bring first, the Republican Party repre­ international assistance for the Span­ sented nationally the point of concen­ ish people in every form, and America tration of the most reactionary forces is one of the places that has to stand in America, moving toward fascism in the front ranks of this solidarity and war. The task was to defeat this action for Spain. threat at all costs. Secondly, Roosevelt, There are a few Americans who are heading the Democratic Party, stood now in the fighting lines in and for a middle of the road course. The around Madrid and in the air forces support of the organized labor and there, and in the machine shops that progressive movement went to Roose­ are keeping the machinery of war go­ velt, as the practical alternative to ag­ ing for the People's Front. Many more gressive reaction. It became our task are eager to go and they should be en­ to teach this progressive and labor couraged and assisted. We must under­ movement not to rely upon Roosevelt, stand that in the struggle for support to secure independent political organ­ of Spain we can now reach out into ization and action, to win all possible the ranks of every circle in America concessions from Roosevelt while which has any firm democratic con­ using this campaign to prepare its victions. There are many people ready future complete independence in a to fight for democracy and to go to Farmer-Labor Party. Thirdly, the Spain today. As Communists we urge Communist Party, necessarily con­ them to do so and fight for the cause ducting an independent campaign, of all humanity. was the most active, loyal and clear­ It is on this world stage, the setting headed leader of the whole camp of of which is characterized chiefly by labor, progress and peace. Its special Spain, with the Soviet Union complet­ task, while influencing the broadest ing its own democratic achievements masses and the practical electoral de­ while leading the world forces in sup­ cisions, was to maintain its role inde­ port of Spanish democracy, with the pendent of the capitalist parties, and fascist governments ever more openly extend widely its roots of sympathetic subsidizing and supporting fascist in­ connection with the masses of workers, tervention, with all the world forced farmers and lower middle classes and to align itself on one side or the other their organizations. openly or tacitly; it is on this world These three objectives represent a stage that we must evaluate the re­ specific American application of the cently concluded elections and must strategy of the People's Front, formu­ mark out the next steps in the strug­ lated on a world scale at the Seventh gle for democracy, progress and peace World Congress. You will recall that in the United States. we in America also helped prepare 18 THE COMMUNIST that Congress decision by our move­ these statements by Comrade Dimi­ ment for the Labor Party in 19~5· I troff. After the Seventh Congress we want to recall to you a statement of said that the far-reaching and world­ Comrade Dimitroff in his report to shaping consequences in the People's the Seventh World Congress, where Front strategy would become clear he said: only as they unfolded in the life of the people of the world. We called for "And what would the success of fascism in the United States entail? For the toiling a continued and sustained study of masses it would, of course, entail the unre· the Seventh Congress decisions and strained strengthening of the regime of ex· their consequences. The victories of ploitation and the destruction of the working the People's Front in France and class movement. And what would be the in­ Spain confirmed this estimate. Now we ternational significance of this success of fas­ cism? As we know, the United States is not must add that the elections in the Hungary, or Finland, or Bulgaria, or Latvia. United States in their own and differ­ The success of fascism in the United States ent way also confirmed the correctness would change the whole international situa­ of the Seventh Congress decisions. tion quite materially." The best possible confirmation of Comrade Dimitroff, after thus eval­ the correctness of a strategy is its suc­ uating what fascism in the United cessful execution, and the realization States would mean to the entire world, of the expected results. To what de­ in another place went on to expose the gree did the masses of the people source of incipient fascism in the achieve the objectives we set for the United States: election? The first objective was the defeat of "One must be indeed a confirmed addict of the use of hackneyed schemes not to see Landon. This was accomplished to a that the most reactionary circles of American degree far surpassing all expectations. finance capital, which are attacking Roose­ There was a crushing rebuke to the velt, represent first and foremost the very Republican Party such as no major force which is stimulating and organizing the party had experienced in generations. fascist movement in the United States. Not to see the beginnings of real fascism in the It must be clear that the more over­ United States behind the hypocritical out­ whelming the defeat of the Landon pouring of these circles 'in defense of the camp, the more did we achieve our democratic rights of the American citizen' is political objective which was more tantamount to misleading the working class than merely keeping Landon out of in the struggle against its worst enemy." office. It was to discredit and drive This warning was directed against out of public life all who stood on such people as the leaders of the So­ such a platform before the American cialist Party and their policies. They people. This aim we shared with the failed to realize the significance of this largest number of people, which fascist danger, and, hence, in the elec- · proved to be the great majority of the tions, found themselves cut off from population. Without exaggerating our the masses and headed for a harmful role in bringing about this result, we sectarian isolation. can safely say that the weight of each We learned in this election cam­ individual Communist in the struggle paign what deep truth there was in was far higher, manifold than that THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT

of the members of any other political Non-Partisan League, although only a group in America. beginning and very timid step forward The second objective was to make to independent political action, repre­ the campaign and the re-election of sented distinct progress over the tradi­ Roosevelt serve also to prepare and tional A. F. of L. attitude, and was a strengthen the forces of the Farmer­ step in the direction of a Farmer­ Labor Party and the People's. Front. Labor Party. In these examples and This aim was achieved in varying de­ in other mass movements of perhaps gree in the various parts of the coun­ less significance we find some indica­ try, with some advance almost every­ tion of the general advance that was where. We Communists, by our policy achieved in the election campaign and activity, helped bring about these toward building the foundation of a advances in every case, in many in­ People's Front. stances in a most significant degree. We have no reason to exaggerate Outstanding examples of these are: these achievements, beyond their true (a) the smashing victory of the Minne­ proportions. They are limited and full sota Farmer-Labor Party not only over of weaknesses. Yet they are of enor­ the Republicans, but also over the mous importance as representative of Democrats where their candidates those movements toward the People's stayed in the race; (b) the victory of Front, the further development of the ·wisconsin Progressive Party, and, which gives the only hope of prevent­ more important, the strengthened ing reaction and fascism from seizing position within it of the Farmer-Labor America. The problem of further ex­ Progressive Association, with the ap­ tending, developing and uniting this pearance of Communists and definite movement on a national scale is the Left wingers among the elected of­ central problem of the day. ficials; (c) the electoral successes of the On the third objective, that of \Vashington Commonwealth Federa­ building the Party, we should note tion, a People's Front movement just that even by the narrowest standard of emerging out of the Democratic Party, measurement, the vote for the Com­ moving toward a :Farmer-Labor Party; munist ticket, which circumstances (d) the united political action move­ this year removed from all direct re­ ment in California which united the lation to the scope of our influence, E.P.I.C. movement with labor and shows considerable growth except on Left-wing organizations, and which the Presidential ticket, which will maintained the positions in state legis­ probably show a slight decline. An ex­ lature and Congress originally wo~ ample of this is the growth of the vote in 1934; (e) the American Labor Party in New York City to 65,ooo for the in New York which, notwithstanding general ticket, topping the Socialist serious weaknesses and shortcomings, vote of 6o,ooo for the first time. That advanced the People's Front and gath­ there was a distinct advance of Com­ ered more than one-quarter million munist Party influence has been gen­ votes under its own banner, giving erally admitted. its support to Roosevelt not through We must come to the conclusion, the Democr~tic Party; (f) Labor's therefore, that life itself, and the re- 20 THE COMMUNIST suits of the struggle, have given proof own supporters to greater enthusiasm. of the full correctness of our Party's With Republicans as the party of strategy, a strategy which brought us Northern capitalism, and Democrats fully into the main stream of Ameri­ that of the special agrarianism of the can political life and made our small South, the basic problem of their con­ Party a significant factor not merely flict was always which of them would for ourselves but for the whole win the allegiance of the West. This country. regionalism was accentuated by the Our Party's significant role was federal system of governmental struc­ made possible by our understanding ture, with its 48 sovereign states. The of the deep,class currents in American basic class antagonisms rarely broke politics. When we speak pf our Party's through this superstructure to find achievements, we by no means con­ any clear expression in the parties and ceive of them as exploits of wonder­ issues in national politics. workers who sucked these results out If this traditional structure of the of their own thumbs. Our Party's role two-party system had remained intact, was important because we knew the there is little doubt that the Literary currents among the masses. We placed Digest straw ballot would have been ourselves in a position, not merely to as prophetic in 1936 as it had been in ride these currents, but to cooper­ four previous Presidential elections. ate with them and increasingly to The Literary Digest came to disaster guide them. It was the movement of because it overlooked one little fact: the masses which was the force that the dominant line of political group­ changed the whole face of American ings was no longer the vertical one of politics. regionalism, but the horizontal one of Let us try to get a closer idea of the class stratification. Because their sam­ nature of the change in the political ple votes were taken overwhelmingly structure of the parties that took among the upper classes-automobile place, making the Republican and owners and telephone subscribers­ Democratic Parties something differ­ they reflected the general current of ent from what they were before. For these classes toward Landon and the generations the two-party system of Republicans, but overlooked the con­ American capitalism was based upon trary current among the,poorer strata a regionalism that roughly corre­ in the opposite direction. sponded to basic economic groups. Class groupings came forward as the These were the industrial banking decisive factor in the 1936 elections, North, the cotton-tobacco South, the sweeping over and submerging the old wheat-dairy-livestock-mining West. regional traditions and interests. That The party struggle was largely be­ is one of the chief reasons for Roose­ tween the bourgeoisie of these three velt's sweeping majority. The speed regions for their special interests. with which this took place, its extent They brought forward such issues in which left out only Maine and Ver­ addition as were considered necessary mont (the stagnant extreme North­ to undermine the mass following of east), its volume with a majority of the rival groups, or to whip up their II,ooo,ooo-all these indicate that this THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 21 change is not accidental or temporary, Roosevelt, the more the masses turned but a permanent new direction of toward him. They had learned that American political life. newspapers represented and spoke for This regrouping on class lines came their worst enemies and oppressors. to the fore on the initiative taken by The unprecedented "Red scare" the big monopolists, in the organiza­ that was staged against Roosevelt also tion of the notorious Liberty League, strengthened the sentiment of the and the subsequent mobilization of masses in his favor. Of course, no one the American Bankers' Association, could seriously credit the cries of the United States Chamber of Com­ "Communist", "revolution", "Mos­ merce, the National Manufacturers' cow", "red flag", and so on, that filled Association, and all similar bodies un­ the air for weeks. When for a full der the direct control of Wall Street. week the newspapers debated whether i'heir policy was directed toward it was really true that the Communists shelving Roosevelt and his policies in asked their followers to vote for Roose­ favor of the Republican candidate­ velt, they succeeded in doing more any Republican, they thought, could than diverting a few hundred thou­ be elected by them. They were even sand votes away from us, in his direc­ agreed, as their reactionary literary tion. They also convinced millions, al­ servant, Mencken, expressed it, that a ready alarmed, that his typical Hitler­ Chinaman could beat Roosevelt with Hearst trick stamped the dominant all that money-power behind him. But features of the Landon camp as fascist. the masses, although stirring with dis­ Thus the great mass of anti-fascist sen­ content against Roosevelt's policies, timent was directed to Roosevelt. The took fright at this unprecedented con­ defeat of almost every Red-baiting centration of all their most pitiless ex­ candidate in the elections was one of ploiters, arid rallied around Roosevelt its major features. Red-baiters lost out to defeat Wall Street. When the fascist no matter what group they operated Hearst added his voice to the hymn of within. Another typical trait of the hate the issue became quite definite Landon campaign which confirmed for the masses. Roosevelt's victory was mass opinion of its f,ascist direction won for him in the first place by the was its demagogic and contradictory character of his enemies. Their cam­ promises of all things to all men. paign of hatred was his greatest polit­ Roosevelt also gathered to his sup­ ical asset, as he himself recognized in port the mass peace sentiments preva­ his Madison Square Garden speech. lent among the people. Without Equally significant was the negative putting forward any definite peace influence of the daily newspapers in program, he could still shine in com­ the elections. The big majority of parison with Landon, whose jingoist them actively supported Landon, esti­ tendencies were emphasized by the mates running from 65 per cent to 85 support of the munitions lords and per cent. The remainder, with few warmongers generally for his candi­ exceptions, were lukewarm in their dacy. support and full of reservations. The Another boomerang for Landon more the newspapers turned against was the Republican attack upon the

collapse, collapse, completely completely New New York York isolating isolating Old Old them them Guard Guard from from which which had had trade trade

finally finally brought brought and and them them Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania; to to an an inglorious inglorious it it split split with with the the

after after another another what what of of their their of of strongholds strongholds a a mass mass base base and and in in Connecticut Connecticut

local local organizations, organizations, ence ence of of which which Lemke Lemke had had and and some­ Coughlin Coughlin in in one one

came came to to an an unprincipled unprincipled the the Communists, Communists, split split with with smashed smashed its its the the influ­

led led and and organized organized hands hands in in of of the the its its first first Right-wing Right-wing place place by by elements elements and and

campaign campaign of of exposure exposure the the Socialist Socialist and and opposition, opposition, Party Party played played into into the the

Only Only the the determined determined formist formist interpretation. interpretation. and and relentless relentless By By this this course course

Minnesota. Minnesota. Left-sounding Left-sounding slogan slogan gave gave a a most most re­

successful successful Farmer-Labor Farmer-Labor transition transition to to socialism, socialism, Party Party in in but but for for this this

seriously seriously threatened threatened issue issue of of importance importance to to influence influence was was the the the the immediate immediate

ties ties in in Iowa Iowa and and tisan tisan Michigan, Michigan, League, League, it it and and declared declared even even that that the the only only

trating trating state-wide state-wide states, states, Farmer-Labor Farmer-Labor it it denounced denounced Par­ Labor's Labor's Non-Par­

For For a a short short while while it it succeeded succeeded in in pene­ Farmer-Labor Farmer-Labor Parties Parties in in the the various various

ment ment under under Rev. Rev. Gerald Gerald K. K. Smith. Smith. Party Party opposed opposed and and tried tried to to disrupt disrupt the the

Huey Huey Long Long Share-the-Wealth Share-the-Wealth move­ with with the the Trotskyites. Trotskyites. The The Socialist Socialist

Coughlin, Coughlin, and and the the remnants remnants of of the the of of Trotskyism Trotskyism and and by by amalgamating amalgamating

lowers lowers of of the the radio radio priest, priest, Father Father submitting submitting to to the the poisonous poisonous influence influence

movement movement of of Dr. Dr. Townsend, Townsend, the the fol­ Spain. Spain. It It tried tried to to find find a a new new course, course, by by

lowing lowing of of Lemke, Lemke, the the old-age old-age pension pension vocated vocated its its liquidation liquidation in in France France and and

it it promised promised to to unite unite the the agrarian agrarian fol­ the the People's People's Front Front in in America America and and ad­

Union Union Party Party looked looked formidable, formidable, when when front, front, came came out out in in principle principle against against

Father Father Coughlin. Coughlin. For For a a time time the the the the Communist Communist Party Party for for a a united united

porarily, porarily, the the fascist fascist radio radio priest, priest, Party Party still still rejected rejected the the proposals proposals of of

drove drove from from public public life, life, at at least least tem­ Democracy Democracy in in Europe, Europe, the the Socialist Socialist

The The election election results results discredited discredited and and bankruptcy bankruptcy of of opportunist opportunist Social­

Street Street and and reaction. reaction. on on every every tactic. tactic. Demoralized Demoralized by by the the

class class line-up, line-up, of of a a crusade crusade against against Wall Wall metrically metrically opposite opposite course course to to our our line line

given given even even more more the the character character of of a a Party. Party. The The Socialist Socialist Party Party took took a a dia­

Roosevelt Roosevelt majority majority was was swelled swelled and and given given by by the the debacle debacle of of the the Socialist Socialist

left left them them cold cold or or indifferent. indifferent. Again Again the the the the course course of of the the Communist Communist Party Party is is

velt's velt's record record during during his his first first term term had had Negative Negative proof proof of of the the correctness correctness of of

support support of of the the workers, workers, where where Roose­ was was an an auxiliary. auxiliary.

promises promises aroused aroused the the enthusiasm enthusiasm and and of of the the Republican Republican Party, Party, of of which which it it

have have only only just just begun begun to to fight". fight". These These general general political political significance significance as as that that

slogan slogan that that "for "for all all these these things things we we Roosevelt. Roosevelt. Its Its collapse collapse was was of of the the same same

gaining gaining through through trade trade unions, unions, and and his his overthrow overthrow a a possible possible "dictatorship" "dictatorship" of of

shops shops and and child child labor, labor, collective collective bar­ Coughlin Coughlin raised raised the the issue issue of of bullets bullets to to

hours, hours, higher higher wages, wages, an an end end to to sweat­ actionary actionary slogans, slogans, as as when when Father Father

speech speech with with his his pledge pledge for for shorter shorter paign, paign, laying laying the the ground ground for for more more re­

making making his his Madison Madison Square Square Garden Garden vanguard vanguard for for the the reactionary reactionary cam­

The The result result was was to to press press Roosevelt Roosevelt into into justified justified our our judgment judgment of of it, it, as as the the

petition petition with with Roosevelt Roosevelt in in promises. promises. pected pected vote. vote. The The Union Union Party Party fully fully

and and the the attempt attempt to to enter enter into into com­ ceived ceived only only a a fraction fraction of of their their ex­

weakne!i_ses weakne!i_ses of of the the Social Social Security Security Act, Act, the the Farmer-Labor Farmer-Labor movement. movement. They They re­

22 22 THE THE COMMUNIST COMMUNIST THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT

union connections; and only saved a though defeated, the forces of reaction split in Wisconsin by making that were not routed. They are reforming state an "exception" which resulted in their lines for new attacks, preparing the practical liquidation of the Social­ new methods to gain the same ends ist Party into the Farmer-Labor Pro­ they sought in the election. Forced to gressive Federation. Its course brought drop their plans to challenge the va­ about the public resignation from the lidity of the election, which they clear­ Socialist Party of many members ly had in mind in expectation of a prominent in trade union work and close vote, the reactionaries, faced with the withdrawal of others from prac­ a tremendous majority for Roosevelt, tical politics, both of Right and Left suddenly turned an about face and tendencies. Its whole campaign was a began to make love to Roosevelt. frantic grasping for votes for itself at Hearst, who the day before election all costs, but it failed of this aim denounced him in the same terms as more completely than ever in its he does the Communists, against history. The total vote will be only 20 whom he incites lynch law, suddenly per cent of that of four years ago and found in Roosevelt the qualities of an less than half of the Socialist Party Andrew Jackson of the twentieth vote in 1900, when it made its first century. national campaign. If Roosevelt wants support from The Socialist Party is, as a result of them, the reactionaries tell the world, its sectarian course, its opportunist he can get all he wants, for a "sane" and inept campaign, now in a deep policy that will curb the "wild men" crisis, with its lower organizations rav­ ·who got into Congress in the land- aged by the bitter factional struggle slide, in far too large numbers for re­ for complete control being waged by actionary comfort. The defeated re­ the Trotskyites. \Ve must offer to all actionaries hoped to recoup their for­ sincere Socialists our sympathetic help tunes through the Democratic Right in solving their difficult problems. wing, through influencing Roosevelt, through splitting the Democratic II. What Follows After the Roosevelt Party, and through the Supreme Victory Court. The Communist Party sees in the Now, let us pass on to a considera­ overwhelming defeat of reaction in tion of what follows after the Roose­ the elections a great opportunity for velt victory. The balloting on Novem­ the forces of the People's Front to ber 3 could be called "the great re­ move forward, for labor to achieve pudiation". The large majority of some of its demands, for all of the people were first of all voting against oppressed to win improvements in Hearst, against the Liberty League, their situation. But this cannot be against Wall Street, against Landon, done if we sit and wait for someone to against reaction, fascism and jingoism. bring things to us on a platter. It will That is the first and most important not happen if the masses rely upon significance of the elections. It was a Roosevelt. Progress can only come if smashing defeat for reaction. But, we use the opportunity for organiza- 24 THE COMMUNIST tion and struggle on a broader and a word about helping create this re­ more determined line than ever alignment. We can by no means agree before. with this passive attitude but must Evidence that millions of workers point out that it is an obstacle to understand this point is to be seen in progress. the rising movement in various indus­ The employing class is naturally tries, in marine, steel, clothing, textile aware of the mounting spirit for strug­ and others. These workers knew that gle of the masses and they are trying now is the favorable time to gain de­ to head it off. That is the significance mands, but that without organization of the large number of voluntary pay and struggle nothing will happen. increases that have been announced There is a mounting mood of confi­ since the elections. dence and readiness to struggle. Only the organization and struggle This is the mood that must be of the masses, independent of capital­ roused, stimulated and organized to ist parties and politicians, will realize drive the whole movement forward for their demands and expectations, the People's Front. through Congress and outside of Con­ Of course, the Democratic Party gress, and prepare the way for greater leaders and Roosevelt want nothing of concessions later on. the kind. They want everyone to be True, the masses have "great expec­ quiet and wait for whatever the new tations", as The New York Times ex­ Congress will bring them. The Demo­ pressed it, as a result of the defeat of cratic Party wants to restore good re­ reaction. They believed in the prom­ lations with its extreme Right wing ises made to them. They expect higher and with the reactionaries generally wages and lower hours, with protec­ and still continue to absorb all tion of the right of collective bargain­ Farmer-Labor Party sentiment and ing and trade union organization. prevent its crystallization. They expect adequate relief and pub­ The A. F. of L. Executive Council, lic works to care for the eleven million instead of leading the labor movement unemployed; and they are in the fonvard, pulls back and condemns mood for sharp struggle to achieve even such hesitant efforts as Labor's these. They expect the improvement Non-Partisan League and the C.I.O.'s of the old-age pensions and social se­ steel drive. It is ready to split the curity law, and their extension to the whole labor movement rather than whole population. They expect the permit progress. wiping out of sweatshops and child The C.I.O. unions, while moving labor. The Negroes expect some of the forward for industrial organization, equality that Ickes talked to them are marking time politically, waiting about. The farmers expect more relief for new developments instead of help­ from their burdens. The young people ing bring them about. The statement expect further help from the govern­ of Labor's Non-Partisan League after ment. The masses expect a curb to be the elections sounded only the call to placed on the usurped powers of the be alert and to be ready for a possible Supreme Court. They expect the realignment in 1940, but there was not United States to take an active part THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 25 in preserving peace in the world. plication of the tactic of the American They expect greater civil liberties. Labor Party in New York would have All of these great expectations con­ been a great advance. The closest stitute the mandate given to Rooseve1t thing we got to a national concentra­ by the overwhelming majority of his tion of the Farmer-Labor Party forces 27,ooo,ooo supporters. It is these great was the valuable but very limited expectations which must be trans­ Chicago Conference of May 30. This formed into the moving force for the produced no effective organization but creation of the People's Front and the only a platform. The Chicago platform independent struggle and organization alone, however, by its stimulating effect to realize these things. on all local movements, proved the tre­ The crushing defeat of the Repub­ mendous role that can and will be licans hastened the disintegration of played by a really effective national the old two-party system. It brought united front of all the progressive closer the growing split of the Demo­ movements and organizations. That is cratic Party, the party which united what we have in mind when we call progressive and reactionary elements for a national Farmer-Labor Party. in the election, elements which cannot We must soberly estimate, however, long continue in the same party. It the moods and trends among the strengthened all the progressive ten­ broad progressive ranks. We must find dencies among the voting population. the way to unite the movements al­ All these things improve and broaden ready outside of and independent of the prospects for the building of the the Democratic Party and Progressive People's Front. \'\Te can say that these Republicans together with those that prospects are much better than ever are still maturing within the old par­ before. ties, and not yet ready for full inde­ But at the same time, while improv­ pendence. This means that we must ing and broadening the prospects for conceive of the People's Front on a a national Farmer-Labor Party, this broader scale than merely the existing very progress brings about a tempo­ Farmer-Labor Party organizations. rary delay in the organizational unity We must conceive of it on a scale of all these forces in a definite na­ that will unite the' forces in the tional organization. Now more than Farmer-Labor Party and other pro­ ever there is a fear among many pro­ gressives together with those forces gressives of prematurely forming such crystallized in some form or other but a party and thereby narrowing it not yet independent of the old parties. down, leaving behind and outside Our experience in Washington and serious forces which can be brought in California confirms the correctness of a little later or in a different form. this judgment. There is not the slight­ We want to hasten the formation of est doubt that we were correct in es­ a national Farmer-Labor Party as tablishing the united front of these much as possible. It was the absence movements which were not yet inde­ of such a party in the last elections pendent of the Democratic Party. The which seriously held back the growth struggle to realize the mandate of the of labor's power. Even the national ap- elections will still further broaden and

that that afraid afraid be be not not showed, showed, need need we we election election the the of of Likewise, Likewise, results results the the that that

wotld. wotld. the the say say in in must must we we arguments arguments And And suasive suasive majority. majority. progressive progressive

per­ the the all all than than this this of of more more hands hands Left Left the the the the to to in in velt velt government government the the

Roose­ of of and and of of control control government government of of possible possible course course maximum maximum the the get get

the the change change will will industries industries production production and and exploiters, exploiters, and and reactionaries reactionaries worst worst

mass mass the the organize organize to to movement movement ful ful the the against against time, time, possible possible shortest shortest

success­ and and strong strong A A fields. fields. political political the the in in people people the the of of majority majority the the

and and economic economic the the in in masses masses the the organize organize to to is is Front Front People's People's the the in in

of of struggle struggle independent independent the the by by forces, forces, aim aim Our Our majority. majority. overwhelming overwhelming the the

of of relationship relationship the the by by but but dency, dency, be be time time shorter shorter or or longer longer a a for for will will

ten­ or or mind mind Roosevelt's Roosevelt's by by not not mined mined who who progressives progressives non-socialist non-socialist include include

deter­ be be will will life life national national of of road road costs costs all all at at must must we we Front Front People's People's

The The left. left. tum tum the the will will In In he he left left Parties. Parties. turns turns road road Communist Communist and and ist ist

the the right. right. turns turns he he If If right right turns turns road road Social­ the the for for camouflage camouflage a a obtain obtain to to

the the road. road. the the of of If If middle middle the the find find trying trying not not are are we we Front, Front, People's People's the the

to to tries tries always always Roosevelt Roosevelt road. road. the the of of part part in in realize realize already already which which Parties Parties

course course the the by by entirely entirely aspects aspects major major Farmer-Labor Farmer-Labor existing existing the the in in and and

its its in in determined determined be be will will course course his his Front, Front, People's People's the the in in that that phasize phasize

that that know know we we experience experience past past From From em­ must must we we now, now, ever ever than than More More

today. today. policy policy relief relief administration's administration's basis. basis. mass mass broad broad

the the in in realized realized being being is is election election before before a a on on Party Party Farmer-Labor Farmer-Labor the the of of ment ment

expressed expressed as as Roosevelt Roosevelt by by tum tum Right Right develop­ the the for for present present at at necessity necessity

a a of of prediction prediction our our although although Left, Left, a a is is This This parties. parties. old old two two the the of of side side

or or Right Right tum tum will will Roosevelt Roosevelt whether whether in­ and and outside outside forces forces places places most most in in

to to as as speculations speculations in in do, do, people people some some include include least, least, at at time, time, a a for for to, to, have have

as as time, time, waste waste to to need need not not do do \Ve \Ve will will unity unity broader broader This This nationally. nationally.

legislation. legislation. labor labor and and social social later later and and scale, scale, state state a a on on them them unite unite

for for fight fight the the in in congress congress national national the the will will which which forces forces progressive progressive these these

and and states states the the of of assemblies assemblies legislative legislative to to acceptable acceptable way way a a find find and and cretely, cretely,

the the in in second, second, con­ and, and, relations relations their their unionization, unionization, and and and and people people the the

hours hours for for fight fight the the in in dustries, dustries, among among wa~es, wa~es, work work at at 'forces 'forces real real the the study study

in­ the the in in all all of of must must first first We We workers; workers; country. country. the the the the of of throughout throughout

expectations expectations great great the the realize realize to to field field uniformly uniformly develop develop to to is is Front Front People's People's

political political and and the the how how economic economic the the on on formula formula by by struggle struggle answer answer will will

independent independent in in struggle, struggle, of of course course which which blueprint blueprint a a be be cannot cannot There There

the the in in only only dispersed dispersed fully fully be be will will It It infancy. infancy. of of difficulties difficulties the the

Front. Front. People's People's all all the the of of througb througb growth growth them them further further nurture nurture and and pangs pangs

the the to to obstacle obstacle an an become become can can against against birth birth through through them them help help to to ready ready be be

fought fought not not if if must must We We illusion illusion them. them. This This with with tion. tion. work work and and ognize ognize

re-elec­ his his rec­ through through will will goal goal we we this this before before achieved achieved mature, mature, and and grown grown

have have already already fully fully people people the the overnight overnight that that forth forth sion sion spring spring they they

impres­ the the create create to to want want course, course, of of that that demand demand and and movements movements growing growing

supporters, supporters, close close these these his his of of and and hands hands our our Roosevelt Roosevelt wash wash Thomas, Thomas,

this. this. achieving achieving of of sibility sibility Norman Norman like like cannot, cannot, We We ments. ments.

pos­ the the before, before, move­ saw saw ever ever we we progressive progressive than than more more those those crystallize crystallize

COMMUNIST COMMUNIST THE THE THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT

the workers and farmers will win too need to take time for any extended much through Roosevelt and will thus economic analysis. It is clear that pro­ dull their appetite for more and make duction and economic activity in al­ them conservative. We must encour­ most every industry are definitely age the masses to win everything continuing upward. Production is possible through the election vic­ approaching pre-crisis levels. But the tory of Roosevelt, showing them most important fact is that this still . that this can only be done through leaves a mass of unemployed in Amer­ organization and struggle, and ica, variously estimated from nine to through political independence from fourteen million. This, together with Roosevelt. 't\Te can be quite sure that the forces always preparing a new col­ every gain under these conditions will lapse, guarantees that this so-called only sharpen their appetite for more, prosperity will not reach even that while having increased their knowl­ relative mass of people that it has in edge and their power to gain more. previous periods, and that it will be Neither do we need to speculate on even shorter in duration, independent the question as to whether on a na­ of the changes that may be brought tional scale the People's Front will be about by world political developments realized only in the form of a Farmer­ such, as world war. Labor Party, or through its combina­ The election results strengthened tion with other forms of organization the fight for the unity of the working and struggle of the masses. It is suffi­ class and of the trade union move­ cient at this moment to take note of ment. This is of central importance, the necessity in many states to work for without the firm leadership and for a time at least also through broad­ hegemony of the working class which er and less definitely crystallized forms can be exercised only through its than the Farmer-Labor Party. What unity, the broader People's Front can­ will finally come out on a national not be realized. scale will to a large degree be deter­ The fight for working class unity mined by the relation of forces within which for us still means the historic the Roosevelt following, between reac­ task of the organization of the tens of tionary and progressive trends and millions of the unorganized workers, forces. A split in that following is sure and especially the workers in the basic to come, but its form on a national and mass production industries, today scale is still imr)Qssible to predict with confronts us with the special and im­ certainty. In this struggle we will also mediate task of fighting against the participate, and we will have many spreading of the division in the organ­ difficult, complicated, and dangerous ized labor movement, of fighting for problems to solve in organizing and the reunification of the American Fed­ influencing the masses in the struggles eration of Labor. that take place within the Democratic Our Party has throughout the whole Party and in some progressive sections of this critical period in the trade of the Republican Party. union movement thrown its full Just a word about the economic weight in the fight to maintain the prospects after the election. We do not unity of the American Federation of THE COMMUNIST

Labor and against the splitting poli­ to demand surrender to reaction at the cies of the reactionary leaders of the Tampa convention, we must unite all Executive Council. Now the Fifty­ progressives in firm solidarity. Prac­ sixth Convention of the A. F. of L., by tical compromises to adjust the partic­ its endorsement of the suspensions, ular claims of particular craft unions has taken a step which increases the to this basic program are, of course, threat of a long time split in the trade allowable, and no one would think of union movement. We shall redouble rejecting them in principle before­ our efforts in the fight for trade union hand. But such practical compromises unity, for the unity of the American are possible only when the reactionary Federation of Labor. The statement of Executive Council has opened the the Central Committee condemning door for them, by abandoning its de­ the split, issued immediately after the mand for unconditional surrender of Tampa convention had confirmed the the progressives in their fight for work­ suspension of the C.I.O. unions, fur­ ing class unity. nishes the guide for our tasks in this Recently Comrade Dimitroff, in his fight. article on Spain, recalled to our mem­ We must examine in detail the ap­ ory the clear, firm words of Lenin on plication of this statement to the unity which are of great value in con­ specific situation and find very careful­ nection with this problem to the ly the correct line in the complicated American trade union movement: problems that will exist in the many "The workers really need unity. And the industries and in many trade unions. thing that must be understood above all else Again we have to say that there is no is that apart from the workers themselves, no formula which automatically gives us one will 'give' them unity, no one is able to an answer to these problems. Only help their unity. Unity must not be 'prom­ careful study of the concrete situation ised'- this will be an empty boast, self-de­ ception. Unity must not be 'made' out of will enable us to find the correct, the 'agreement' between little groups of intellec­ most effective, answer in the fight for tuals-this is an error of the saddest, most unity. naive and ignorant type. Unity must be won, But let it be clearly understood that and only by the workers themselves. The we are not going to be fooled by conscious workers themselves are capable of achieving this-by stubborn and insistent empty talk about unity. We will al­ work. ways expose, as we have in the past, "Nothing is easier than to write the word those who play with the word unity 'unity' in letters a yard high, to promise and use it to cover up their reaction­ unity, to 'proclaim' ourselves as adherents of ary and splitting policies and tactics, unity. But, in reality, unity can only be ad­ vanced by work and the organization of the There are those who, in the name of progressive workers, of all conscious work­ unity, would surrender to the reac­ ers.... tionaries and compromise or abandon "This is not so easy. It requires work, the basic struggle to unite the workers insistence, the rallying together of all con­ in steel, auto, rubber, chemical, and scious workets. But without work, the unity of the workers is out of the question." other mass production industries. Against 'this false cry of unity, which So Lenin spoke some twenty years William Green used so demagogically ago about unity, on the eve of the THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 29 World War. And it is in this spirit role of the working class in shaping, that we today fight for working class formulating and influencing the poli­ unity, for the unity of the American cies and life of all the people in our Federation of Labor. The fight for great country? That certainly would genuine trade union unity is a fight be a guarantee that the mandate to for the triumph within the labor Roosevelt in the elections would be movement of the principles enunci­ fulfilled. ated and supported in action by the Ill. Accomplishments and Shortcom­ Committee for Industrial Organiza­ ings of the Communist Party tion. The establishment of this prin­ ciple is an absolute necessity for the We have already evaluated the main further growth, for the very existence, accomplishments of the Party in the finally, of the trade union movement. previous section of the report. We It is a necessary condition for the have seen how our Party strategy preservation of democracy in the proved correct by the results, and by United States, for the salvation of our the immensely improved position of country from reaction, fascism and the Party in relation to all the pro­ war. That is why we must say, without gressive forces in the country. We are the slightest equivocation, that the in conflict only with those forces struggle to realize the principles of the which are holding back the move­ C.I.O. is the first demand upon every ment; we have increasingly close co­ progressive as well as every revolu­ operation with all forces helping to tionary worker. It is the struggle for drive the labor movement forward to the unity of the working class. new strength and achievements; above There can be no real working class all we have deepened and broadened unity so long as some 25,ooo,ooo work­ our ties with the masses. ers, of whom some ten million are in Some comrades are still influenced the mass production industries, are by the idea that the Party vote is the unorganized. This does not in the only correct measure of our achieve· least mean that we underestimate the ments. To the degree that they are in­ importance and significance of the fluenced by this idea they are some­ four million organized workers, the what pessimistic because our vote did most decisive sections of which are in not show any great jump forward. the unions affiliated to the C.I.O. and These comrades look upon our re­ in the independent railroad brother­ fusal to go into head-on collision with hoods. the progressive labor movement, in Can you imagine if we succeeded in sharp competition for votes, like Nor­ the future, and that is our aim, to help man Thomas did, as a sacrifice neces­ organize the entire working class, its sary to assure that Landon would not decisive sections, in genuine industrial be elected. Therefore, they ask us why unions, under real progressive labor we dia not change our position in the leadership, how that would change the last days before election, when it was entire picture of the class relations becoming clear that Roosevelt would within the country? What impetus be elected. They wonder why we did that would give to the independent not swing over to the Thomas tactic THE COMMUNIST

of grabbing the utmost possible votes vote. There is no direct relation be­ for ourselves at the last minute (even tween them at all. Not to understand though this failed so signally to win this is to have a very narrow under­ votes for Thomas). standing of the whole strategy of the To pose such a question reveals a People's Front, which is not a mere shallow understanding of our whole election tactic but a strategy for a strategy and a wrong evaluation of our whole period. accomplishments. Let us throw light Where our strategy was realized in on this question from another angle. its most satisfactory form-as in Min­ Suppose that our proposals last sum­ nesota-we had no state ticket at all, mer for a national Farmer-Labor but were among the most effective Party had been adopted by the pro­ campaigners for the Farmer-Labor gressive movement. Then we would ticket. Does that mean that we were have withdrawn our national ticket weakened in that state? On the con­ entirely. But we 'would have made an trary, we made the greatest advance equally energetic campaign without of Communist influence among the getting any separate Communist Party masses, precisely there. Equally sig­ vote at all as a result. Would our nificant were our advances in Wiscon­ doubting c..omrades still have kept sin which again can in no wise be their eyes fixed on the C.P. vote, this measured by our separate vote. Even time zero, and feared that we had in the very unsatisfactory American disappeared entirely from the political Labor Party in New York, with its scene? Of course not. Clearly, it would crude organization from the top alone, have been recognized as a much there were greater advances of our in­ greater victory. However, the urgent fluence than would have accompanied need for a united front, which every­ a situation where the America Labor one felt, was realized in another and Party was absent, even though that less satisfactory way under such cir­ had meant a higher Communist Party cumstances that we could not fight vote. We made greater advances with against it-the united front of the the lower vote in New York with the labor and progressive forces around American Labor Party in the field Roosevelt. than we could have made with a We foresaw, before the campaign higher vote and the American Labor opened, that our separate vote would Party not in existence. register only our irreducible minimum Then, too, we should point out one and not our maximum influence. This possible development which was not was inherent in the situation and our realized but which might have oc­ strategy. There is nothing to weep curred if the progressive leaders had about. We do not have to explain taken only a part of our advice. Sup­ away our vote by special local cir­ pose these leaders and their organiza­ cumstances or special weaknesses on tions had adopted our proposal for a our part. Weaknesses there were national Farmer-Labor Party conven­ aplenty in our campaign but they tion, including the Socialists and the must not be sought in this question of Communists. Suppose that this con­ the relation of our influence and our vention had come together and THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT

formed a national Farmer-Labor Party to say was of serious importance, that with all of us in it, and then decided millions were influenced in their to place 'Roosevelt at the head of the thinking and their actions by the ticket nationally, like the American Communist Party? No one can deny Labor Party did in New York, but this undisputed fact. Can any one say followed it up with state Farmer-La­ that we lost our heads at any moment, bor Party tickets wherever possible. that we hesitated, or doubted at any Under such circumstances would the point, that our strategical or tactical Socialist Party and the Communist line was ever blurred or unclear or Party have accepted the discipline of had to be changed? It is possible to such a broad national united front of differ with us but it is not possible all progressives? Would we have re­ to say that. Everyone recognized that frained from putting forward our own the Communist Party was an excep­ independent tickets and supported the tionally effective striking force pre­ Farmer-Labor Party ticket even with cisely because of its conviction and Roosevelt at the head? I venture to say clarity, its drive and unity. That is that under such conditions we would another of the hall marks of Bolshe­ almost surely have done so. The vism. united People's Front and the cause of Can anyone deny that in this cam· Socialism as well would have been ad­ paign the Communist Party broke vanced much more than by what ac­ through and smashed the legend of tually happened jn the election cam­ our enemies that our Party is some­ paign. thing foreign, imported from abroad, One of the greatest accomplish­ not organically a part of the American ments of our Party in this campaign political scene? No one can deny that was that it began to learn how, even we thoroughly established our Party with small forces, to find its road in as an American Party, that our slogan the midst of the most complicated -"Communism is 2oth Century Amer­ political situation-we drove in the icanism" -registered deeply with the center of a national political storm American people. This was a great toward a definite goal, without ever achievement. This is also a sign of losing sight of it, and without allow­ Bolshevism. ing our forces to be broken up, dis­ Can anyone deny that in this cam­ persed or demoralized, but rather paign the Communist Party smashed gaining strength and clarity out of it the conspiracy to outlaw it, to rouse a all. This ability is the hall mark of pogrom spirit in America against the Bolshevism and to the degree that our Communists, to drive us out of pol­ Party demonstrated this ability, we itics? We forced our Party on the can say that we are in the process of ballot in states that had passed laws becoming a real Bolshevik Party. designed especially to keep it off. Can any one, even our worst ene­ Where, as in Illinois, we were kept off mies, deny that the Communist Party the ballot it was by arbitrary violation played an important role in the cam­ of the letter and spirit of the election paign; that millions of people thought laws, unreasonable as they were, or as that what the Communist Party had in Florida, where the law now even 32 THE COMMUNIST excludes the Republican Party. When of our Party with the catastrophic de­ in Terre Haute and Tampa, and cline of the Socialist Party, its grow­ against Comrade Ford in Durham and ing inner crisis and one will at once Toledo, mob action was resorted to, get the different results of two dif­ this did not rouse the country against ferent policies. The S.P. policy flowed us, as the reactionaries hoped, but we from reformism, sectarianism, influ­ tumed the attacks into the most effec­ enced by counter-revolutionary Trot­ tive boomerang whereby we rallied skyism; our policy was built on even large sections of the capitalist Leninism correctly applied to the press to speak in our defense, and won present situation. new sympathy from millions who were Let us now turn attention to some formerly indifferent to us. Here also of the most serious weaknesses and is a great achievement. shortcomings of the campaign. First Turning to the more technical as­ of all we must speak of the entirely pects of the campaign, one can list unsatisfactory state of the recruitment among our achievements the effective of new members. Our membership use, for the first time, of the radio. grew but there was not an increase-In We reached millions with our message tempo to keep pace with our height­ nationally, and in many districts also ened activity and broadened contacts. on a local scale. This must by all Our units, sections and districts were means be followed up and made a per­ not able to keep this task in the center manent part of our technique. of their attention. It constantly slip­ Our campaign literature was upon ped into the background and was for­ a higher political level, more effective gotten in favor of the more exciting and was distributed in far greater and spectacular sides of the campaign. quantities than ever before in the his­ Concentrated attention to important tory of our Party. While much more industries and localities was also too could have been done with this task often forgotten and the Party slipped and literature distribution was seri­ back too much into the old diffused ously neglected in many places, yet general approach against which we this still remains one of the strong have struggled for years. points of the campaign. This means that our lower units The political rallies organized in showed a tendency to drift and be­ the most important cities on a na­ come the playthings of spontaneous tional plan were taken up most seri­ development instead of taking charge ously by the district organizers and of this development and directing it as a rule were models of effective po­ to a conscious goal. That such a thing litical and organizational work, in could happen proves that the units which thousands of people partici­ and sections did not conduct planned pated in a responsible way. Unfor­ work, that they were not the organiza­ tunately these models were not ener­ tional center which directed the activ­ getically followed everywhere in han­ ities of the membership toward pre­ dling the thousands of lesser meetings, determined goals. This is precisely the which left much to be desired. condition that we find upon direct Contrast the growth of the influence examination of the work of the units THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 33 and sections. Their work remained organizations and their role, a clear too much a matter of routine handed understanding of the characteristic down from above. Their initiative was Bolshevik approach and conception of low, their inner life unattractive and the Party is required. A large part of uninteresting; as a result they did not our membership is new and un­ become the centers of radiating energy, schooled in these problems. It requires the dynamos of the Party. The de­ constant educational work to trans­ cisive centers of Party activity down form these members into conscious below were too much divorced from Bolsheviks-a task still most seriously the units and sections, and did not neglected. Another part of the mem­ find in them their basis and support. bership, longer in the Party, has be­ In fact, they forgot the central task come fixed in old careless bad habits, of making the units and sections con­ which have not been weeded out. centration points and radiating media Some of the local organizations have of all phases of the campaign. become careless and loose in their ap­ Closely connected with this and proach to Party organization and its flowing out of it is the unsatisfactory regular functioning on the false quality of much of the local and grounds that this was what we meant neighborhood , campaigning. There when we warned against overloading was mechanical repetition of the the members with work beyond their speeches and formulations of the na­ powers. tional spokesmen and national litera­ Out of a loose and careless approach ture, without any effort at indepen­ to the organizational building of the dent local application and tying up of Party, there arise all sorts of political national issues with concrete local weaknesses and even deviations. There problems. Further, when local con­ arise again examples of the old dis­ crete applications were attempted credited theories of "mass work first" there was too often a lack of care and at the expense of neglecting the Party, precision, a sloppiness and careless­ and then the opposite and equally ness and sometimes even a vulgariza­ wrong theories of "Party work first" tion of our policies which was very at the expense of negl.ecting the mass harmful. Such things could pass un­ work. corrected only because the units and Lenin taught us that true revolu­ sections were not alert, and were not tionists never for a moment allow such checking up on the conduct of the artificial separation of "Party" and campaig·n, not conducting it as a col­ "mass". Mass work without the simul­ lective undertaking but as isolated taneous growth and strengthening of individual efforts. The struggle for a the Party is in danger of opportunist higher quality in all our work from liquidation, while Party work di­ top to bottom is the only answer to vorced from direct and immediate these problems. connection with the masses will tend In facing and solving the compli­ in the direction of sectarian barren­ cated problems of intensive work ness and degeneration. The constant , among the masses, and simultaneously connection and interrelation between building and strengthening the Party Party and mass work must become 34 THE COMMUNIST the dominant feature of our Party life, sistent fight for the unity of the work­ in units, sections and districts, if our ing class, for the unity of the trade Party is to exert its maximum influ­ union movement. Secondly, I shall ence in directing the millions of Amer­ deal with the next steps in building ican workers and their allies onto the the People's Front. Thirdly, I shall road of the People's Front and even­ deal with the tasks in the fight for tually to socialism. peace, how to strengthen the existing That these problems still exist for peace movements, and how to organ­ us is proven by the weakness and ize the tremendous peace sentiments shortcomings of the election cam­ of the American people. Fourthly, I paign. It will be necessary to pay shall take up the problem of how critical attention to all these features better to connect ourselves with the of our Party life, making use of our economic and political activities of the election experiences to drive out all people, and, through a better quality looseness and carelessness, and to re­ of Communist work, facilitate the place these characteristics by those of building and strengthening of our responsibility and vigilance through­ Party. out the Party. To begin with, I shall take up the Summing up this examination of great marine strike which occupies the the Party's role in the election cam­ center of the picture today. This paign, we can say that despite serious should be some indication to us of weaknesses and shortcomings which what is going to come in many other must receive sustained and detailed districts of the country. If one com­ attention at this Central Committee pares this strike with the great strike meeting and after, the Party followed in the same industry in 1934, one can a correct and consistent line which im­ see on what a higher plane it is this proved its position in every respect. year-how much stronger are the Our "Party demonstrated a growing forces of the marine workers, how political maturity and emerged as an much more widespread is their influ­ important force in national life. We ence spreading to the other sections gained the sympathetic attention of of the labor movement and how they millions and influenced them, and our are gammg international support Party now stands in an excellent situ­ from the French and Mexican long­ ation to face the next tasks, much shoremen. That is why Mr. Ryan was greater tasks, toward which we must in a hurry to adopt a solidarity strike now direct our attention. with the employers as a means of combatting the solidarity actions of IV. The Tasks of the Party and the workers. the Mass Struggle Ahead This great battle in marine should I divide this section into four become the first point of concentra­ groups of problems. First, I shall deal tion of all the energies of the Party. with the problems and tasks of the Successful results from this struggle coming economic struggles of the seem quite possible, quite within the working class and of building its or­ grasp of the workers today, especially ganizations. That includes the per- if we rally all possible support to THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 35 them. They will have an enormous in­ guard of the working class, if we are fluence in stimulating and hastening not the most energetic and construct· the growth of similar movements that ive organizers in steel. In any place are maturing in many other industries where the work of the Party among all over the country. steel workers is being neglected, it We must not expect the developing &hows that the Communists in these strike movement just to come in one territories are keeping the Party on a great sweep in the next few weeks and low political level and preventing the spread out all over the country. It will Party from becoming the leading force have its periods, its ups and downs, among the decisive sections of the but we can expect some real results in working class. These comrades are the near future, especially if the re­ keeping the Party from performing its actionary employers carry through necessary duties for the working class. their present intention of halting the This warning holds true for the com­ forward move of labor by open re­ rades who work in other basic indus­ pression. The clim.ax of the present trial areas, in textiles, auto, rubber. development looks as though it will Other basic industries will soon have, come about the time when the miners' if they do not already have, the prob­ agreement expires and when the prob­ lem of an organization campaign. lems in steel will have come to a In textile we see great struggles de­ head. veloping that promise much greater Those of us whose memories about achievements than those of 1934. The former struggles are still fresh can re­ situation today is such, what with the member the lessons of the past strike mood of the textile workers, that if all struggles. Most of the things we wrote progressives work right and take the in the last four years still hold good, job seriously, the workers can make and we should study them carefully. many gains. That is why it is essential The steel drive lagged definitely for the Communists to work harder in during the period of the election cam­ textile, to give better guidance and paign. Since the elections, it is picking stand out as the most courageous up and gathering headway again, but workers. I think that even with the rising de­ In auto we see new struggles and velopment of the steel campaign, it what appears to be a new move of is necessary to warn against any re­ organization which is already talking laxation of the vigilance and per­ in terms of new thousands of union sistence of the workers in organizing members. More important, all of this a greater drive in steel. organizing now begins to appear in It is necessary also to say that there the center of the automobile industry are still some districts of our Party and not at its periphery. Due to the which have not yet taken up the steel concentration of the auto industry in campaign with sufficient seriousness, a few centers, with half a million even though there are important sec­ workers, it is a special problem in afew tions of the industry in their territory. districts and first of all for the Michi­ We cannot really consider ourselves a gan district, which must persistently serious, revolutionary Party, the van- work among the auto workers and THE COMMUNIST

transmit the experiences of these strug­ the statement of the Central Com­ gles to the working class elsewhere in mittee, what we have repeated for the country. But just as marine, steel the past nine months: It is necessary and textile are national questions for to fight to preserve unity below, in the us, so is auto. By the very nature of the city councils, in the state federations, auto industry and the concentration to prevent the threat of a split from of capital there, where the bosses rep­ being carried through, to put up or­ resent the national money power of ganized resistance to the plans of the the country, it is necessary to have the splitters. Every progressive must em­ national power of the workers mobil­ phasize that international unions ized around auto, too. must not be split by this division. We The next field that must be espe­ think that it would be harmful if any cially mentioned is agriculture. The unions were divided, one section going activities there are tremendously en­ to the C.I.O., the other to the A. F. of couraging, showing great possibilities. L. \Ve believe that it is advisable for Unfortunately, there is a negative side the existing unions to act as a body. to the picture, showing in many dis­ We ourselves want to do everything tricts our neglect of this question. w·e we can to align them with the C.I.O., can't afford anywhere to neglect the but under no conditions do we carry agricultural workers. We can't afford that fight on in such a way as to make to have gaps in our line in this field. a split in that union. Of course, we Where work has been done and will do everything to prevent the re­ progress made, it has already been actionaries from splitting off any sec­ sufficient to prove that it can be clone tion of any union. everywhere where serious and intelli­ It is necessary to emphasize the need gent attention is given to it. of keeping the C.I.O. forces together. The agricultural workers every­ w·e fight against any tendencies where can play as big a role in build­ among the weak-kneed leaders of ing the labor movement and in giving some of these unions to abandon the it a progressive tendency as they fight and surrender to the reactionary played in the A. F. of L. convention. policies of the Executive Council. \Ve They were one of the most significant emphasize at every point that under groups of representatives present. The no circumstances will we allow any same role can be played in the whole weakening of the work of building the labor movement and in every locality progressive movement inside the re­ if it is given correct leadership and actionary unions, those still dominat­ daily attention. We are going to de­ ed by the reactionaries. On the con­ mand it of every district. I believe that trary, there must be more systematic the Central Committee will agree with work, especially in such organizations this emphasis. as the Carpenters' Union which in A. Now about some details in the F. of L. conventions is voted from the struggle for trade union unity and the vest pocket of \Vm. Hutcheson, but relations between the C.I.O. and the which clown below has numerous pos­ Executive Council of the A. F. of L. sibilities of progressive organization. We must emphasize what we said in We will face and solve in practical THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 37 work the special questions that will as the actions taken against the fede­ ari'e with. the creation of new unions ral unions, and rescinding the dicta­ in unorganized sections of industry, as torial powers of the Executive Coun­ to where the workers shall be taken. cil which came out of these last For example, in the possible organ­ decisions. ization of some sections of heavy ma­ Let us turn to the unemployed and chinery, we will have the problem o£ vV.P.A. workers and their organiza­ determining whether these new unions tions. The unemployed struggles are gu into the machinists' or into some coming to the fore again as a key of the other unions, whether it be the question in the whole political life of Amalgamated Association, or what. the country. The efforts now being Generally, we have been clear on made to squeeze down \V.P.A., and this last question. \Ve refused to use relief expenditures from VVashington, our forces to carry sections of newly a typical and expected course of the organized workers away from the ju­ middle-of-the-roaders of the Roose­ risdictional claims of the Machinists velt administration, are tests to see Union over into some of the industrial how much starvation the workers will unions, where there was a fear that stand without fighting. \Ve have seen this would intensify rivalries and in the last years in the relief policy sharpen the split. vVe will have to directed from Washington, a system keep that consideration carefully in whereby the administration regulates mind in facing such problems under the flow of relief funds according to the new circumstances that are arising. the scale of mass struggles that is put We must understand that under all up in the various localities. They are conditions we are driving towards constantly shifting their policies to creating the foundations, in the test out how much resistance and unions controlled by the reactionaries, struggle will be put up in any par­ for the struggle for unity with the ticular place. If they get by without industrial unions. If we are to organ­ any stmggle, that proves to them they ize strong progressive forces, we have were correct in reducing expenditures. to give them a political basis on which If they have a sharp fight, if there are they can fight inside the old unions. collisions with the police and demon­ \Ve must not allow the policy of head­ strations and struggles around relief on collision between unions to be offices, that proves to them they were developed in jurisdictional struggles wrong, and they begin to raise expen­ where they can be avoided. ditures up a little bit again. It is im­ The conditions on which unity can possible to impress this sort of mental­ be achieved are the withdrawal of the ity with any kind of language except suspensions, the guarantee of the con­ that of organization and struggle. tinuous carrying through of the or­ In the period before the elections ganization of the mass production in· there was created a little bit of the dustries into industrial unions, the feeling of security among the unem­ restoration of those democratic rights ployed because things were rather of unions further infringed upon by stable for a time; but the change after the Executive Council in Tampa, such the elections was so sharp that even THE COMMUNIST the most enthusiastic supporter of the which will probably play a most im­ Roosevelt administration, the New portant role in the next immediate York Post, had to write a sharp edi­ months, namely, the development of a torial asking, "Who won the elections legislative program for the new Con­ anyway?" They said that if a person gress. Around this legislative program had gone to sleep just before election must be built up a progressive bloc in day and then awakened in New York Congress. And around these progres­ last week, he would have thought Lan­ sive forces a mass movement of support don won the elections, because of re­ must be built up in the country. This lief cuts that were being carried is the first step to the next stage in through. Of course, Landon didn't building the Fanner-Labor Party. win, and as a result we have greater It is clear what the nature of such possibilities of changing the situation, a program will be. There will be con­ greater possibilities if we organize and crete bills, as far as possible worked fight. The unemployed question for out under our influence, making con­ a time has been pushed into the crete proposals for carrying through background of our work in most necessary labor and social legislation. places. The question of the unem­ The closest working together with all ployed must come forward because we possible progressive allies in the fur­ are faced with a critical moment in therance of such bills is an essential the whole problem of relief and work prerequisite for their success. for the unemployed. How we will Where our point of view does not work in directing the mobilization of receive the broadest support of the the unemployed and bringing the progressive forces, we will have to solidarity of the progressive move­ make, in addition to putting forward ment around their actions may be de­ bills of our formulation, such com­ cisive in determining a lot of other promises as will be necessary to get a questions not only of the unemployed. working relationship with the other The whole course of the administra­ progressives who have different ideas tion in Washington may hinge on how from us. While frankly declaring our this first post-election issue goes, on differences with them, we sometimes whether the forces of progress or re­ will have to support unsatisfactory action have the last word to say. bills. In other cases, as in the question The gains of unity in the Workers' of social security, there will be the Alliance have been great, but we have problem of how to fight most effec­ not fully exploited these gains and the tively for the Workers' Bill and at the possibilities of gains. Now the situa­ same time be prepared to unite with tion calls for greater attention to un­ these circles of progressives who will employed issues and unemployed ' want to improve and amend the Social struggles and to the unemployed or­ Security Bill. We will have to join in ganizations, more help and more all movements to amend and improve guidance. These will encourage the the existing Social Security Act by in­ next steps in building the People's creasing its coverage and requiring Front. the employers to foot the entire cost. This brings us to a problem But we will not give up the fight for THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 39 the Workers' Bill, because the Roose­ to consolidating and extending the velt security act is built upon such un­ existing local and state Farmer-Labor sound principles that, even if amend­ Parties. There should be a warning ed, it can never be converted into an word that in most cases these still have adequate social security system. too narrow a base to be sufficient for We should also raise the question of extensive work. There should be no a national conference of social and pretense of Farmer-Labor Parties labor legislation, to be held in Wash­ where a mass basis does not exist. ington during the sessions of Con­ It is much better not to discredit the gress. This should not be decided by name of the Farmer-Labor Party by us as something we are going out to calling sectarian groupings by this carry through. Rather, there should name. be a general get-together of all pro­ There is a pressing need for per­ gressive groupings in a national legis­ manent relations between the Farmer­ lative conference, bringing mass pres­ Labor Parties that now exist and be­ sure to bear upon Congress in the tween them and progressive groups in­ early months of its session. side the old parties. We will have to We should raise with our progres­ take up the detailed problems of how sive friends the discussion of possible these broad progressive movements measures to democratize election can participate in the primaries of the rights and practices in the United old parties on a local and state scale, States, thereby advancing civil liber­ and organize the fight of the pro­ ties generally. There should be federal gressives against the reactionaries in regulation of all elections involving the primaries. federal officials which is now entirely A platform of social and labor leg­ a state affair with resulting chaos. islation, nationally and in each This is an obstacle to developing a state, furnishes the foundation, the national fight for civil rights. absolutely essential foundation, for Following the same approach, there every such effort. Without a big mobi­ should be work done on a state scale. lization of mass support for a plat­ We already have experiences show­ form of social and labor legislation, ing the tremendous value of state con­ any move towards organizing partici­ ferences on social and labor legisla­ pation in the primaries would have tion. This must certainly be organ­ very bad results. Even when the foun­ ized in every state where there are any dation is laid for this mass movement, forces that can be called together on there will have to be the greatest care any serious scale. Progressive groups to a\'Oid the inevitable dangers of in all state legislatures should also be throwing the masses back into the old formed. All this, let me emphasize two-party rut, instead of taking them again, is laying the groundwork for out of it to build the Farmer-Labor the Farmer-Labor Party and the Party. People's Front. Only on the basis of There is the question of keeping the such work can organizational meas­ face of the Communist Party in the ures have any serious meaning at all. public eye and the platform of the We want to give special attention Communist Party forward in all of THE COMMUNIST this work. At the same time we can­ think a Communist should not walk not shove the Communist Party into into the office of another organization everybody's face in such a way as to for fear he might not be welcome. make the Party offensive to people. And in many places they are looking Nor should we uncover all our forces for us, while we shy away from im­ in those cases where it is necessary to portant contacts. There must be more have people working without being attention paid to working out the known as Communists. The problem friendliest relations with these pro­ of how to develop open and official gressive people, in making better con­ participation of the Communist Party tacts and in developing good working in all of these growing movements relations on all issues. towards the People's Front becomes \Ve must constantly agitate for the more and more important. In this earliest possible national unification respect we have to give some points of the movement for a Farmer-Labor of guidance. Fi.rst, there must be the Party, without trying to press at this utmost pressing forward of every moment for specific organizational measure to create conditions in which moves to that end, in the form of the Communist Party can be accepted calling conferences of any kind. At without serious difficulty by every pro­ this moment there is a strong hesita­ gressive group. Great care should be tion, and not among the most back­ taken not to prematurely push this ward circles of the Farmer-Labor question to a decision when the rela­ Party movement, to calling a national tion of forces is against us, and we are conference. They fear that it will certain to be rejected. The Socialist crystallize the issue too soon, before Party in New York, ten minutes after the broadest possible forces have been they had been denouncing the Amer­ reached. We must take this hesitation ican Labor Party, rushed to make a into consideration and give some formal application for admission. This weight to it ourselves. \Ve have to do move considerably increased the dif­ everything we can to create a feeling ficulties of solving the proper rela­ of confidence that a Farmer-Labor tion between Socialists and Commu­ Party can be successfully formed. nists on one side and the American We have to give more systematic Labor Party on the other. and constant attention to the very Under all circumstances we must broad united front formations which give systematic attention to improving do not enter directly into the Farmer­ the working relations between Com­ Labor Party movement. They furnish munists and the best progressive ele­ a very good base and support for the ments in the Farmer-Labor and pro­ Farmer-Labor movement. I have in gressive movement. In some places we mind, especially, the American Negro have made considerable progress in Congress, the youth movements, the this respect, but in many places this peace movement, church groups, fra­ is still neglected, and great possibil­ ternal organizations and so on. Most ities of work are simply left unex­ of these broad mass movements can­ plored. In many places there is a sort not immediately be a part of the of shyness and timidity. Some of us Farmer-Labor Party movement. But THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT they are definitely movements which maintained and used as effectively as can be used to extend the basis of the possible. It is one of the best examples Farmer-Labor Party. It is absolutely of our Party's work, of its political an essential feature of our whole con­ development, of its understanding of ception of the People's Front that such its role. Our International Fund is one movements should be an integral part of the finest features of our Party life. of the fight against reaction and fas­ I must say that I am proud of it and cism. As we get more definitely or­ I hope that we will, all of us, unite ganized in the political field, along the in the firm determination that it is lines of the People's Front, we will going to be maintained at all costs, certainly find ourselves coming more and extended. and more into the position of the Now let us take up the special prob­ French people. There all of these lems of the Socialist Party. It is neces­ broadest mass organizations are al­ sary now to give an answer to what ready a part of the French People's our attitude is toward the problem of Front in a formal pact with the po­ the united front as a result of the litical parties. Although this cannot be changes that have taken place re­ the aim of our work at this moment, cently within the Socialist Party. Does we should have in mind that we are this bring about any change in our working in that direction. tactics and proposals? As before, we In this respect, we should mention still believe that the united front !s the problem of the International La­ absolutely necessary and even today bor Defense and its growing impor­ we are confident that the majority of tance. The whole question of labor de­ the Socialist rank and file want unity. fense and the struggle for labor's New difficulties have to be overcome prisoners, internationally and nation­ to achieve the united front. \Ve must ally, is becoming more and more im­ place the struggle for the united front portant. As the masses get a keener into the foreground as essential for understanding of the problem of the the whole future existence of the protection of democratic rights, they Socalist Party as a whole. The Social­ are taking up the problems of political ists must understand that nothing of prisoners with a keenness and on a a constructive nature' can come out of wider scale than we have ever seen in the Socialist Party except on the basis this country. Enormous things can be of struggle against the counter-revolu­ accomplished in the field of labor de­ tionary Trotskyites. The ideas of the fense nationally and internationally Socialist leaders have been corrupted if we give a little more attention to it. by Trotskyite poison. The Socialist vVe should mention the Interna­ Party must rid itself of its poisonous tional Fund of our Party and the sys­ influence, if it is to play any positive tematic financial help which our Party role in the strug-gles that loom ahead. gives directly to other Parties in colo­ At this time, when the working class nial and semi-colonial countries, as faces the danger of war and fascism, well as the German Party. We must at a time when the people of Spain are insist more than ever that this Inter­ fighting for democracy and life, Nor­ national Fund should be scrupulously man Thomas can find nothing better

rcso- are are people people American American the the of of cent cent en- of of but but funds, funds, raising raising of of matter matter a a

per per go go that that forget forget never never must must We We only only not not is is This This Spain. Spain. for for help help terial terial

ma­ practical practical organizing organizing to to attention attention scale. scale. tional tional

interna­ an an on on democracy democracy of of fenders fenders give give ever, ever, than than more more now, now, must must we we

de­ as as Aires Aires Buenos Buenos in in parading parading are are possible, possible, is is that that campaign campaign political political

who who Americas, Americas, the the in in fascism fascism toward toward intense intense most most and and broadest broadest the the Besides Besides

path path the the on on directly directly there, pressing pressing there, democracy". democracy". Spanish Spanish defend defend to to thing thing

present present governments governments are are There There day. day. "every­ is is slogan slogan our our where where Spain, Spain, of of

to­ Conference Conference Peace Peace Inter-American Inter-American question question the the course, course, of of means, means, this this and and

the the to to relation relation in in significance significance great great peace, peace, for for fight fight the the to to turn turn we we Next, Next,

especially especially has has latter latter This This Prestes. Prestes. of of Trotskyites. Trotskyites.

freedom freedom the the for for Nazis, Nazis, the the of of prisoners prisoners counter-revolutionary counter-revolutionary the the with with break break

other other of of freedom freedom the the for for Thaelmann, Thaelmann, clean clean a a make make and and front front united united the the for for

of of freedom freedom the the for for slogans slogans the the peace, peace, Party Party Socialist Socialist the the win win to to results, results, get get

of of enemies enemies worst worst the the at at directly directly strike strike to to Party Party Socialist Socialist the the of of convention convention

that that fascism fascism and and war war against against March March the the for for prepare prepare must must ~logans ~logans They They

rallying rallying the the to, to, tendency tendency a a sometimes sometimes issues. issues. vital vital all all on on decision decision a a to to coming coming

is is there there as as forget, forget, not not also also us us Let Let never never of of drift, drift, of of policy policy old old the the longer longer

ress. ress. no no be be will will there there that that so so foundation foundation

prog­ and and democracy democracy of of champions champions ing ing solid solid a a build build must must wingers wingers Left Left

outstand­ particular particular these these of of defense defense honest honest These These convention. convention. March March the the

the the for for struggle struggle the the around around people, people, at at Party Party their their of of life life the the in in change change

Spanish Spanish the the for for struggle struggle the the around around some some make make can can They They Party. Party. Socialist Socialist

crystallized crystallized be be effectively effectively most most can can the the of of sections sections best best the the grip grip now now that that

fascism fascism against against sentiments sentiments mass mass great great passivity passivity and and pessimism pessimism of of feelings feelings the the

the the using using of of question question whole whole The The overcome overcome elements elements Left Left healthy healthy these these

tyranny. tyranny. of of hatred hatred and and democracy democracy help help to to have have We We way. way. helpful helpful most most

of of love love American American of of tradition tradition best best the the the the in in problems problems their their about about Party Party

in in is is which which example example their their follow follow sons sons Socialist Socialist the the in in elements elements best best the the with with

per­ more more that that urge urge and and volunteers volunteers consult consult must must We We know. know. you you as as March, March,

heroic heroic such such all all welcome welcome only only can can We We next next for for .convention .convention special special a a called called

people. people. liberal liberal and and professional professional class, class, has has Party Party Socialist Socialist The The festations. festations.

middle middle also also but but workers, workers, the the especially especially mani­ harmful harmful apparently apparently most most their their

America, America, in in democrats democrats serious serious of of strata strata against against Trotskyites Trotskyites the the of of pulsion pulsion

all all affecting affecting is is democracy democracy Spanish Spanish ex­ the the for for struggle struggle the the concentrating concentrating

of of defense defense armed armed the the for for unteering unteering by by is is influence influence Trotskyite Trotskyite of of Party Party

vol­ towards towards movement movement This This scourge. scourge. Socialist Socialist the the rid rid to to way way only only The The

or or pestilence pestilence any any than than worse worse are are who who Party. Party. Socialist Socialist

civilization, civilization, and and cities cities destroying destroying are are the the on on mark mark a a such such left left has has ism ism

who who blood, blood, of of sea sea a a in in people people whole whole Trotsky­ of of character character revolutionary revolutionary

a a drown drown to to trying trying are are who who barians barians counter­ the the that that regret regret We We class. class. ing ing

bar­ fascist fascist the the work­ against against Soviet Soviet the the struggle struggle of of armed armed leaders leaders of of murder murder

'the 'the in in the the participate participate to to plotting plotting Spain Spain to to assassin assassin go go to to an an defending defending

themselves themselves organizing organizing are are who who people people time time spends spends He He Trotsky. Trotsky. of of Defense Defense in in

democratic democratic honest honest Committee Committee those those so-called so-called a a couraging couraging head head than than do do to to

42 42 COMMUNIST COMMUNIST THE THE THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 43 lutely opposed to war. It is this mass A special task in this fight for peace sentiment that must be crystallized is involved in the utilization of the into an· effective weapon for peace. present Inter-American Peace Con­ Through effective agreements for lim­ ference in Buenos Aires. We can use ited aims, through avoiding rigid the peace sentiments and tendencies forms, we must weld that healthy sen­ that were expressed at this conference timent into a form to which the to create better conditions, a better people are accustomed, and through atmosphere for our whole peace work. this really mobilize them against war. '\Ve must endeavor to exert a direct '\Ve must take more serious respon­ influence among these circles, especial­ sibilities in helping to build the Amer­ ly those in Latin-America, which are ican League Against War and Fascism only beginning to come into contact and bring it into a much broader with the proletarian peace movement united peace movement. Without such in the United States. methods we will not be able to meet There are many positive features the issue of the coming war with any of the Inter-American Conference degree of effectiveness. It is only which can be effectively utilized. In through the broadest mass federations spite of all its shortcomings, the Inter­ of the organized peace sentiment of American Peace Conference does con­ the country that we can really have stitute a move against the fascist ag­ some influence in America on the gression. By that alone, it becomes a question of war and peace. We know positive feature in the world situation, that a small Party, even like ours, can which can be used in the fight for influence the national life. We have peace. proved it in the elections. Now we Now, more than ever, there is the must prove it after the elections on necessity for the fullest possible un­ the decisive question of war. derstanding of the Soviet Union as the We have the special problem of bulwark in the fight for peace, and cultivating closer cooperation with in the fight for progress of the whole our brother Parties in colonial and world. How can that be done better semi-colonial countries. This has be­ than by popularizing the new Soviet come an organized part of our life; Constitution, and when we consider but we still have a tend~nc·y to allow that Constitution, what greater in­ it to fall back into too much of an strument is there than the recent organizational routine and to some speech of Comrade Stalin in present­ small material help. We must try ing this Constitution to the Congress again to revive the old project of mak­ of Soviets? '\1\T ould it not be a good ing groups or districts of our Party idea if we would take Stalin's speech give special consideration to Latin­ and make that a concentration point American countries and our brother of literature distribution? I think that Parties there. In order to develop this the Central Committee should issue closer, more intimate, contact with a million copies of this pamphlet at a our brother Parties, we must do more very cheap price. I am sure that if we than rely on general and formal re­ could distribute a million copies of lations of cooperation. the speech on the Soviet Constitution,

mittee mittee sible sible must must without without know know information) information) the the capabilities capabilities effect effect the the and and greatest greatest

that that purpose, purpose, for for decentralization decentralization 'is 'is impos­ responsibility. responsibility. It It means means that that each each com· com·

movement. movement. W'e W'e must must also also (and (and indeed indeed for for

volves volves the the whole whole question question of of personal personal

"We "We must must centralize centralize the the leadership leadership of of the the

round round hole hole for for a a round round peg. peg. This This in­

square square hole hole for for a a square square peg peg and and a a directive: directive:

the the old old American American saying: saying: Find Find a a Lenin Lenin gave gave us us a a permanently permanently valid valid

This This is is another another ership ership way way needs needs of of decentralization decentralization expressing expressing of of tasks, tasks,

the the question question of of how how centralized centralized lead­

demand demand different different abilities." abilities."

come come in in contact. contact. In In that that respect, respect, on on that that different different branches branches of of revolutionary revolutionary work work

the the maximum maximum division division of of labor, labor, remembering remembering tions, tions, of of the the workers workers with with whom whom they they

"The "The Committee Committee must must endeavor endeavor to to achieve achieve shaping shaping the the policies policies of of their their organiza­

said: said: come come in in the the near near future future the the basis basis for for

ings ings of of Lenin Lenin on on this this question, question, who who central central leadership. leadership. They They have have to to be­

the the work. work. Let Let us us examine examine the the teach­ out out organization organization tasks tasks outlined outlined by by the the

sonal sonal responsibility responsibility for for carrying carrying out out are are not not just just institutions institutions for for carrying carrying

the the utmost utmost decentralization decentralization of of per· per· only only if if the the lower lower bodies bodies of of the the Party Party

rection rection and and authority, authority, together together with with fronted fronted with. with. This This can can be be achieved· achieved·

highest highest degree degree of of centralization centralization of of di­ high high political political tasks tasks that that they they are are con­

tic tic features features of of Lenin's Lenin's teaching: teaching: the the ships ships and and districts districts to to the the level level of of the the

problem problem of of achieving achieving two two characteris­ and and mass mass organizations, organizations, section section leader­

problem problem of of building building the the Party Party is is the the to to lift lift our our units, units, fractions fractions in in unions unions

First, First, I I want want to to point point out out how how the the link link and and the the most most important important one one is is

ing ing as as fast fast as as the the situation situation requires. requires. bility bility and and careful careful attention. attention. the the next next

which which prevent prevent our our Party Party from from grow­ cisive cisive question question of of personal personal responsi­

strengthen strengthen the the working working class class and and Now Now that that we we have have stressed stressed the the de­

elements elements of of our our work work which which do do not not leadership leadership among among the the working working class. class.

our our Party Party in in order order to to examine examine those those will will contribute contribute to to the the stability stability of of Party Party

with with some some organizational organizational problems problems of of sonnel sonnel that that is is one one of of our our troubles, troubles, and and

this this connection connection that that I I want want to to deal deal avoid avoid the the unnecessary unnecessary shifting shifting of of per­

working working class class for for all all struggles. struggles. is is in in It It trained trained abilities. abilities. That That will will certainly certainly

increases increases the the fighting fighting fitness fitness of of the the and and the the Party Party to to the the best best of of their their

teaches teaches and and guides guides the the workers, workers, which which ership ership that that can can serve serve the the working working class class

role role of of the the Communist Communist Party Party which which possibility possibility of of developing developing capable capable lead­

ism. ism. What What is is required required is is the the leading leading mind mind that that only only in in this this way way is is there there the the

and and strength strength necessary necessary to to win win social­ sociated sociated around around him. him. We We must must bear bear in in

rights rights cannot cannot give give the the understanding understanding highest highest degree degree among among the the workers workers as­

economic economic demands demands turity, turity, to to and and establish establish democratic democratic his his authority authority to to the the

taneous taneous struggles struggles him him to to of of grow grow the the to to workers workers greater greater fm fm political political ma­

is is an an established established fact fact that that It It the the spon­ help help the the individual, individual, and and thus thus enable enable

building building and and the the strengthening strengthening policies policies of of our our the the Party. Party. work, work, guide guide and and

We We can can now now individual individual turn turn to to comrade, comrade, the the tasks tasks they they of of must must shape shape

needs. needs. Collectively, Collectively, all all humanity. humanity. together together with with the the

kind kind of of person person the the each each bulwark bulwark phase phase of of of of peace peace work work and and progress progress for for

derstanding derstanding of of It It the the means means land land of of that that socialism socialism they they must must as as know know the the

it it would would help help make make for for a a better better un­ interests interests of of each each individual individual member. member.

44 44 THE THE COMMUNIST COMMUNIST THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 45 possible decentralization o! :e.sponsibility stood. That is why we have so many towards the Party of every mdJvJdual mem­ troubles with recruiting. On the ques­ ber, of every section of work and of every tion of recruiting, we must again call circle belonging, or adhering to the Party. Such decentralization is an essential condi­ attention to the problem of concen­ tion for, and an essential correction to, tration. I don't have to repeat the revolutionary centralism."* principle involved in this. \Ve must point out that we do have a tendency We must consider the problem of to forget it. In the building of the activizing the units and sections, and Party, education and training become emphasize the special role of factory more and more important, especially units. We must again remind our­ the education and the training of selves of our decisions to promote new picked personnel. \Ne have gained cadres, fresh forces out of mass work. many experiences in the past year those who have shown the greatest which could be used effectively. There capacity for rousing, leading and m:· is the question of books and pam· ganizing the masses. \Ve must cultl­ phlets, where we have made many vate these cadres, train them, and svs­ important advances, and the press, tematically develop them to higher where our experiences were not so levels of leadership. good. There is the question of our \Ve must build up the authority of schools, the question of forums and our leading committees everywhere. the more systematic use of the prin­ It should be the task of a leading ciple of forum organization, the committee to establish respect among problems of the radio, the problems the people with whom it works, the of taking advantage of the capitalist respect that comes from the expecta­ press, a technique which we have tion that here is the place where we just begun to touch, but which in gen­ will get the answers to our question, eral we neglect absolutely, the ques­ here is where we can go for help, here tion of the movies, the theater and is where we can be told those things arts, and all of these special activities, that we can't find anywhere else. \Ve which must have a very distinct place have got to create that same authority, in our process of mass education. especially in our district committees. Especially important in the ques­ And tlie whole labor movement in the tion of mass education are the Dailj• region should be taught to look to the Worker and Sunday Worker. There district committee of the Communist can be no building of the Party with­ Party as the place where they can go out the much more successful exten­ for authoritative answers to their sion and systematic regular connec­ problems, for serious help in over­ tion of the Daily Worker and Sunday coming their difficulties. Worker with the broad circle of work­ The centralization of leadership ers around the Party. There is a close and authority and the decentraliza­ connection between weak recruiting tion of tasks are not yet fully under- in the Party and the weak develop­ • V. I. Lenin, "A Letter to a Comrade on ment of the circulation of the Daily Our Organizational Tasks." Collected Works, Worker. Let the entire Party mem­ Vol. V. bership become conscious of the need THE COMMUNIST of making the Daily Worker and the ization, in the execution of the Five­ Sunday Worker our main weapons in Year Plan in four years. You will the systematic development of our remember Stalin's great speech on this connections, their education and their question and how it was decisive in recruitment into the Party. the whole construction of socialism. We must bring to the fore now the Let us apply a little bit of that to necessity of spreading the Party or­ our much smaller problems of just ganization to new territory, and espe­ building the first foundations of a cially to small towns. This was empha­ mass Party. sized in my mind very much by the Without this constant struggle for experiences in Illinois, where the com­ quality, for ever higher quality in our rades informed me that the terrible work, we cannot move forward. The election law there had a very good building of the Party is not merely result for our Party. It forced us to go adding greater volume of Communists, to every county· in the state to get more numbers, concentrating on statis­ signatures. And we found that in the tics. It is essentially and centrally the majority of the counties that we had question of constantly improved qual­ never touched before, we had friends, ity, greater effectiveness in every phase people who had been waiting for us of our work. That means the better for years, people who said: "Where inner organization of our work, better have you Communists been all the distribution of our tasks, personal re­ time? We have been looking for you sponsibility, and the avoidance of for years, and you are the first live what is always a danger especially for Communists we ever saw." our. Party, the danger of departmental We must make greater efforts to ex­ fetishism and the impersonalization of tend our work among the Negro work. people. This should be a special point Here again we can make some very of concentration in recruiting. The good application of the experiences burden should not be placed on our in the building of socialism in the Negro comrades, but must be one of Soviet Union. In their struggle for the major tasks of the entire Party. quality, you will remember they came Likewise we should extend much to the question of the necessity of per­ more aid to our young comrades. We sonal responsibility and the abolition must help them with their special of all impersonal forms of the organ­ problems, especially the big job of ization of work. You remember how preparing for their eighth national they expressed this so classically in the convention in April. railroad industry. There had been an Throughout this whole work of old practice of constantly shifting an building the Party, we must pay spe­ engineer from one engine to another cial attention to a higher quality of which resulted in the destruction of work. Here I want to mention what an enormous amount of the power re­ a great role the slogan of better qual­ sources of engines and railroads. What ity of work played in the building of a tremendous improvement they made socialism in the Soviet Union, in the when they adopted a policy of making mastering of the tasks of industrial- one engineer responsible for one en- THE ELECTIONS AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT 47 gine. They made him personally re­ Although Nearing is by no means a sponsible for the engine and did not Trotskyist, it is clear that in this he merely place responsibility upon the was influenced by the Trotskyite ten­ engineering department for all the dency of thought, which has wrought engines. One person was responsible such havoc in Socialist ranks lately. for one machine and no excuses were Whether he would be of the same allowed if the machine was not in opinion now, after the campaign, is good order. questionable; but still the problem re­ All of these things are merely the quires continuous clarification for concrete phases of the whole problem many people. This is our task, which of the Bolshevization of the Party. we undertake without complaint. Bolshevization includes all the meas­ Every vital problem requires constant ures we have spoken of, on the basis reexamination and restatement, so of a mastery of the theory of Marxism­ also the problem of the relation of the Leninism. People's Front to the struggle for socialism. V. The Relation of the People's Front Our country, in common with the to the Struggle for Socialism rest of the capitalist world, is threat­ There are still some of our friends ened with reaction, fascism, and war. (perhaps even still a few Party mem­ The reactionary forces are strong and bers) who are worried about the pos­ menacing. On the other hand, those sibility that the struggle for the standing for socialism, which is the People's Front and its demands only final solution, are relatively weak (which are compatible with the con­ -in the U.S.A. especially weak. Must tinuance of capitalism) may lead us we therefore become pessimists, and to neglect or forget about our final concede in advance that reaction and goal of socialism: Some months ago, fascism must surely win, and that only for example, our friend Scott Nearing through the bitter sufferings of fas­ wrote me a letter in which he devel­ cism can the great majority be won oped the theory that, while the to socialism? No, that would be abso­ People's Front was necessary, it could lutely wrong, it would be criminal, it not be built by the same party which would amount to a 'silent partnership fights for socialism. There must be a with reaction. Although the great toil­ division of labor, so to speak, between ing majority of the population are not two parties of the working class, one ready to struggle for socialism, they of which should struggle for the are ready to defend their democratic People's Front and its demands and rights and living standards against the the other should struggle for socialism. attacks of reaction and fascism, and He seemed to think that the Socialist they

BY JACK STACHEL

HE 56th Convention of the A. against the international unions. The T F. of L., if only because it en­ presence of the C. I. 0. unions at the dorsed the action of the Executive convention, constituting more than Council in suspending the unions af­ one-third of the votes, compelled them filiated to the C. I. 0., thus increasing to make a retreat with their amend­ the danger of a long-time and wide­ ment insofar as it concerned the in­ spread split in the trade union move­ ternational unions. It can be said at ment, must be characterized as one of this point that the C. I. 0. unions the most reactionary gatherings in the who voted for the modified amend­ fifty-five-year history of the American ment are now in danger of reaping the Federation of Labor. The reactionary fruits of their own mistake. For, as we leaders of the craft unions who con­ pointed out at that time, starting with trolled the convention, afraid of die an attack against the Communists, the rank and file (which is at the bottom reactionaries in the council would use of their refusal to organize the unor­ these new powers granted them to at­ ganized), concerned only with the tack all progressives. maintenance of their power, passed The A. F. of L. Council, in its fight a number of other reactionary meas­ against the C. I. 0. unions (which ures which rob the workers of much they already had in mind when they of their trade union democracy. This proposed their amendment at the 55th attack was especially directed against Convention), as we now know, the federal unions and the central usurped powers which were not labor bodies. granted to it by the constitution. They adopted a so-called enabling measure General Characterization on the basis of which they suspended Last year the convention, through the C.I.O. unions, and by depriving the anti-Red amendment, limited the them of their rights at the convention rights of the federal locals, central labor had these measures approved by the bodies and state federations of labor Tampa convention. This measure in the name of the fight against Com­ gives the council virtual power to munism. They failed at that time to perpetuate itself and its policies by include in this amendment an attack the device of suspending any oppo­ Speech delivered at the Plenum of the nent unions prior to the convention, Central Committee of the Communist Party thus assuring for themselves· a major­ of the U.S.A., held December 4-6, 1936. ity. In addition, the convention, by THE A. F. OF L. CONVENTION the adoption of an amendment limit­ ment of the masses, on the other, this ing the rights of federal locals, central attitude in itself stamps the conven­ labor bodies, etc., with regard to the tion as stand-pat reactionary. This in­ introduction of resolutions, and a reso­ cludes the action of the convention lution robbing the central bodies of opposing the Labor Party; the refusal the power to declare employers unfair to take a stand for curbing the Su­ in their community has further cen­ preme Court; the failure to act in tralized control in the small clique of favor of application to the Interna­ reactionary craft union leaders and tional Federation of Trade Unions; robbed the rank and file and the or­ the failure to act against Hearst; for ganizations closest to the rank and the freedom of the Scottsboro boys; file of their rights. the re-affirmation of the old position The reactionary character of the with regard to the Negro workers; the 56th Convention was further shown Youth Congress, etc. by its refusal to go on record in sup­ But, despite the general reactionary port of the people of Spain, against character of the 56th Convention, the fascist invaders. The reactionaries quite a number of progressive resolu­ refused the floor to an accredited rep­ tions sponsored especially by the cen­ resentative of the Spanish trade tral labor bodies and the federal locals unions which are affiliated to the In­ were passed. Among these are the ternational Federation of Trade resolutions in the interest of the un­ Unions. A low point in the convention employed, for the freedom of McNa­ was reached in the vote against the mara; against the Tampa terror (a striking seamen of the Atlantic and resolution which also condemned the Gulf ports. This, perhaps more than attack on the meeting of Comrade anything else, showed the true colors Browder); a resolution for the organi­ of the reactionary splitters. zation of the young workers, and a One of the outstanding features of resolution against vigilantism. the convention, which characterized In connection with Communism, it the reactionary trend among the top is important to note that there was officials, was the injection of the Jew­ not a single resolution, at this conven­ ish issue in a manner which openly tion calling for condemnation of the smacked of anti-Semitism. The fact Communists, nor was there any ref­ that the reactionaries were forced into erence to this in the opening speech hasty retreat on this question does not of Green. The only reference to Com­ in the least minimize the significance munism was in the resolution dealing of this reactionary trend. with the seamen. But in the report of On a number of questions the Tam­ the Resolutions Committee there was pa convention continued the old poli­ a general condemnation of Commu­ cies of the reactionaries, the actions nism along with fascism and Nazism. taken being practically the same as at This report, which dealt wholesalely previous conventions. In the face of with numerous resolutions that were the changing situation in the country, introduced against fascism, treated tliis the growth of the fascist danger, on question in a manner somewhat simi­ the one hand, and the Leftward move- lar to that of the British Trade Union THE COMMUNIST

Congress. Strange as it may seem, there British delegation; and in the speech was probably less Red-baiting at this of the representative of the Cuban convention than at all the conventions trade unions. A second group of of recent years. And this was certainly speeches were those dealing with the not because the Council felt that the right to organize; speeches on the Communists had grown weaker in the fight for a higher standard of living A. F. of L. They were fully aware of ant:l. more adequate social security the presence of Communists among made by Edwin Smith of the National the delegates and of very many im­ Labor Relations Board and Secretary portant resolutions sponsored by the Perkins, as well as a speech calling for Communists. Undoubtedly, this is due the curbing of the Supreme Court to the defeat which -Red-baiting and and for a Constitutional amendment Hearst received in the last elections, made by Judge Padway of Wisconsin. and particularly to the changed at~ The Executive Council was un­ titude of the rank and file of the doubtedly conscious of the fact that A. F. of L. on this question. the eyes of the workers were upon A militant spirit was not absent in the Tampa convention, and sensed the convention. The progressives, that the convention by its action coming primarily from federal locals, would not finally decide the issues central bodies and state federations, dividing the A. F. of L.- It already felt did not have many votes, but they a certain dissatisfaction even from were quite a large number. \¥hat is some of the top layers of the bureau­ more important, they had practically cracy of certain unions. Here it tried all the younger people, workers from to cover up its reactionary and split­ the bench, hopeful, militant, ready ting policies with a tone of "militan­ for a fight. The opposite camp, it is cy" which found expression particu­ true, had the votes. But they did not larly on such questions as the organi­ look very happy. They knew that back zation of the millions of unorganized. home the rank and file would not sup­ the fight for the 30-hour week, and port their reactionary stand. Some amending the Social Security Act. In said it. They blamed Lewis more than connection with the 30-hour week, it anyone or anything else for stirring is important to note that a resolution up the rank and file against them. calling upon Congress to pass the 30- A militant note was struck in the hour week "without reduction of speeches of the rank and file and pro­ earning power" was passed over the gressive delegates, as well as by a num­ opposition of Hutcheson. The conven­ ber of scheduled speakers from the tion, however, did not provide for outside. In this connection, a few those measures that could actually speeches should be mentioned. First, realize these resolutions and speeches the speech dealing with the fight in life; that was made obvious by its against fascism and reaction made by action with regard to the suspensions, Spencer Miller, in which he came out the rejection of the policy of industrial openly in support of the Spanish Loy­ unionism, etc. alists; in the references to the struggle These showed that the Executive against fascism and war made by the Council has no more intention of THE A. F. OF L. CONVENTION really carrying through progressive It was also obvious that some of proposals now than it had in the past. the craft unions, for example, the car­ In fact, what stood out at this con­ penters, paid for more members than vention-in addition to the suspension they actually have. The carpenters vote-is the failure on the part of the were credited with 3oo,ooo members, convention to really take any steps as against 20o,ooo members last year. toward the organization of the unor­ With the suspended unions not ganized, the fight for higher wages, present, the convention had a voting or to develop a program of struggle strength of approximately 25,000 for the demands that the workers had (2,5oo,ooo members). The final vote in mind when they voted for Roose­ on suspension was about 2,ooo, with velt. Instead, we had the sabotage of some abstentions. So that even in the the steel drive, a stab in the back of face of these figures it is obvious that the maritime strike, the refusal to had the C.I.O. unions been at the con­ grant charters to the agricultural vention, the strength of the industrial workers, the office workers, and others. union bloc and its supporters would It could not be otherwise. A conven­ have been greater this year than last tion so reactionary as this, deciding year by 1,500 votes, while that of the to split the A. F. of L. on the issue Council would have increased by of organization of the unorganized, 3,ooo votes, of which 1,ooo came could not be expected to take real through the increased per capita pay­ measures to organize the ~truggle of ments of the carpenters. the workers. Such a vote would not have in­ So much for some general charac· cluded the important gains made by terizations of the convention. the C.I.O. unions especially among the steel, auto and rubber workers. It The Relation of Forces is also quite likely that under such The A. F. of L. Council report conditions a number of the smaller showed that the per capita tax mem­ unions that abstained or voted for the bership of the A. F. of L. was close Council would have voted against the to three and a half million. This Council. It is my opinion that on the figure was not complete insofar as it basis of actual membership, the re­ related to the unions affiliated to the lation of forces between the C.I.O. C.I.O. and other progressive unions, bloc and its supporters and the Execu­ especially unions recently chartered. tive Council is approximately two mil­ For some of these unions did not lion to a million and a half members pay their per capita. in the recent insofar as the vote of the officials goes. period and their membership was ar­ It goes without saying that as far as rived at by dividing their per capita the rank and file is concerned, the payments by 12 months. The News­ overwhelming majority stands for the paper Guild was only recently char­ policies of the C.I.O. We must add tered, and, therefore, making only one that while the basic strength of the payment, was credited with sao mem­ Council is in the building and metal bers instead of its actual membership trades departments (which does not of 6,ooo. include the basic sections of the metal 54 THE COMMUNIST manufacturing industry), the main This was well understood by the strength of the C.I.O. unions lies in Executive Council. This was seen the basic industries of coal, metal when the delegate from Milwaukee mining, oil, rubber, auto, and in the proposed an amendment to the Re­ textile and garment trades. port of the Resolutions Committee. There was division in the ranks of The amendment was first ruled in the Executive Council itself. It is a order by Green and then ruled out of well-known fact that the diehards order upon appeal by the Republican wanted to expel the C.I.O. unions. In Coefield of the Plumbers. The reac­ fact, the metal trades department went tionaries understood that delegates on record for expulsion and for non­ who feared to vote against the Coun­ recognition of the union label of tlie cil would have voted for an amend­ typographical and the suspended ment which called for the lifting of unions. But the general opposition to the suspension and an invitation to such action by, the rank and file in the C.I.O. unions to take their seats the A. F. of L., as evidenced by the at the convention. resolutions in the local unions, at vari­ ·with the C.I.O. unions absent the ous international unions' conventions, following delegations voted against of state federations of labor, central suspensions: bodies, was reflected even among the INTERNATIONAL UNIONS bureaucrats in some of the larger unions, and especially among the Typographical building trades, the backbone of the Bakers Council. There were also some dele- Brewery Workers . gates among the metal trades dele­ Hat and Millinery gates who disagreed with this step of Teachers expulsion promoted by Wharton and Meat Cutters Frey. Newspaper Guild One of the most important factors Elevator Constructors was the presence in the convention Paper Makers of large delegations of federal locals, Pullman Porters state and central bodies pledged Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill against suspension, and a larger num­ \'Yorkers ber of others who would have voted Brick and Clay Workers against suspension. In fact, some of Some of the delegations of the in­ the unions who voted for the suspen­ ternational unions were split. In the sion order voted so not because they case of the Pressmen the surprise vote were in favor of suspension, but be­ was that of Berry. Some of his dele­ cause they did not wish to vote against gation, however, voted against the the Executive Council. Many of these, suspension. In the case of the Hotel as, for example, the Hotel and Restau­ and Restaurant \'Yorkers, there was rant delegation and part of the Press­ at least one delegate who was opposed men's delegation (Berry), who voted to suspension, but was forced to vote to sustain the Council, would not on the basis of unit rule. Undoubted­ have voted for expulsion. ly this was true of other delegations. THE A. F. OF L. CONVENTION

A surprise vote, indeed, was that of There is no question about the fact the delegation of the Fur Workers' that the majority of the state federa­ International Union for suspension. tions are against suspension. This is It was clear to everybody that they evidenced by many of those who acted contrary to the wishes of the stayed away and abstained. Among membership. These delegates were those 13 who voted for suspension elected before the reunification of the there were only two or three whose union as a result of the merger with conventions had approved this policy. the Industrial Union. This vote served Most of them did not vote for the to symbolize the disparity between suspension although they did not re­ the vote of the officials and their rank pudiate the action of the Council. But and file in the other international as for Connecticut and Wisconsin, the unions. conventions of these bodies had gone With regard to the state federations on record against suspension. Others, -although there were listed 35 dele­ like Ohio, had gone on record for gates, only 23 voted (some were ac­ unity. tually absent), with 13 for suspension Out of 734 central labor bodies in and 10 against. the country, only 67 voted. Of these, 39 voted for suspension and 28 against. FOR SUSPENSION A few others abstained, undoubtedly, Connecticut because they were opposed to sus­ Illinois pension, but feared to vote openly Indiana against the Council. It is thus seen Maryland that the central bodies which are the Massachusetts closest to the rank and file and the Missouri local unions cannot be counted upon New Jersey to carry through the splitting policies New York of the Council. Ohio The vote of the central bodies and Rhode Island the state Federations of Labor was un­ Texas til now and still is the chief reason Washington why the Council does 'JOt dare take up Wisconsin the issue of the ousting of the dele­ gates from the C.I.O. unions from AGAINST SUSPENSION these bodies. Alabama As for the 5 1 federal local unions California who voted (out of 914 chartered), 33 Georgia voted against suspension and only 18 Iowa voted for suspension. There were Kentucky some 20 additional delegates present Minnesota who did not vote. It should be noted Nevada at this point that the agricultural Pennsylvania workers' federal local delegates were South Carolina the largest number from any one West Virginia group and voted solidly as a bloc THE COMMUNIST against suspension. 'With auto, rubber port of the Resolutions Committee. and radio (which were the largest and Although there were at least two mem­ most militant bloc last year among bers of the Resolutions Committee the federal locals) now organized in who relused to sign the report as it international unions and therefore pertained to the C.I.O., there was no not represented this year, the number minority report. Had a minority re­ of federal locals was smaller. The ag­ port been made, the vote would have ricultural group was the outstanding taken place on a more favorable plac­ group among the federal locals, th~ ing of the question. The absence of most militant, and gave leadership to such a minority report must be the other federal locals. Much will he ascribed to the unwillingness or the heard from them in the future. failure on the part of Howard-Zarit­ sky to work in that direction. 'Tlie C.l.O., the Socialist Party, ef('. The speech of Zaritsky, in the main, \'v'hat 'was the, role of the Committe:· was good and effectively presented. fnr Industrial Organization at th:: He took up all the major issues, in­ Tampa convention? First, we rriusL cluding the question of the usurpation stale that not only did the C.I.O. of power by the Council, the issue of unions that were suspended stay awa; industrial unionism and the organi­ from the convention, but a numbe: zation of the unorganized, as well as of state federations, federal locals and the injection of the Jewish issue in especially central bodies also stayed the report of the Resolutions Com­ away under the direct influence of the mittee. C.I.O. The two wings of the Socialist Party At the convention those unions divided on this issue as they stood that are affiliated to the C.J.O. (hat­ before the convention. The Right­ ters), or connected with it through wing Socialists organized in the Social­ their officials (typographical), or the Democratic Federation-insofar as scate federations and central bodie, they made their voice felt-in their directly influenced and led by those vote stood by the Executive Council. coming from C.I.O. unions, made no Outstanding here was the speech of attempt to organize the progn:~ssiYc Samuel Beardsley of the Jewelry force;. Had the C.I.O. people organ­ \Vorkers' International Union. He ized the forces among some of the spoke and voted for suspension. Char­ Lop leaders, and had Hm\·ard (who acteristic of the role that these gentle­ though in Tampa did not attend the men perform in the labor mo\'ement, sessions of the convention) come to he did this in the name of "unity" lead these forces-undoubtedly a more and in the name of industrial union­ eH'cctiYe fight could have been made ism. The militant Socialists. represent­ with perhaps some additional votes ing the official Socialist Party, to the gained against suspension. degree to which they expressed them­ A$ it was, Zaritsky was the outstand­ selves at the convention, voted against ing leader of the C.I.O. forces at the suspensions. But they were not a very convention. He made the principal large group. Most of the . Socialist speech immediately following the re- Party delegates came from \Visconsin, THE A. F. OF L. CONVENTION 57 which has a special brand of "Social­ Our comrades participated with ism" all by itself. The Socialist Party others in calling together a number could not exercise strict discipline of meetings where the progressive among its delegation. There was the bloc was crystallized. The biggest vote of Lawson of the Quarry Work­ meeting was attended by some 70 ers' International, who voted for sus­ delegates, including a number from pension. Lawson was on the Thoma5- international unions, state federations, for-President Committee, but we are central bodies, as well as federal not certain whether or not he is a locals. At this meeting, a committee member of the Socialist Party. There was organized to guide the work and were one or two similar cases. to contact some of the other progres­ In the convention as a whole, the sive delegates. Old Guard Socialists, who were few \,Ye can state that the work of our in number, of course, were united comrades at the convention helped with the Council on all questions, give backbone to whatever progres­ while the delegates influenced by the sive forces that were crystallized, and Socialist Party voted for all progres­ to the fight that was made for the sive measures. C.I.O. and other progressive measures. The Socialists did not enter into Had it not been for our comrades, any formal caucus with our Party. the discussion on the C.I.O. would not They attended the most important have taken on the character that it and broadest caucus meeting, consist­ did. Many of the resolutions of a pro­ ing of Communists, Socialists and gressive character would not have progressives generally. · passed, and would not even have been introduced. And, above all, there The Role of the Pm·ty would not have been the large num­ There were present a number of ber of votes cast against suspension, progressive delegates elected with the on the part of the state federations, help of the Party, who came with in­ central bodies and federal unions structions to work with the Left and present. progressive forces. The local Party coxpmittee gave all The number of Party members pres­ the assistance we asked for. We were ent was about the same as last year encouraged on some days to find that and many times the number of both the Daily Worker was sold openly wings of Socialists. Two delegates in front of the convention hall, al­ joined the Party. Considering the fact though for some reason •this was not that the C.I.O. unions were not there, done regularly. This was probably the and that the bulk of those from the first time that the Daily Worker was federal locals last year are now in in­ sold openly in Tampa. We feel tliat ternational unions, this number is as a result of the convention and the fair. But, at the same time, we must favorable action taken on the Tampa be critical of those districts that had resolution, which we introduced, the no delegates at all, and we should Party in Tampa can now go forward especially have had more delegates much more openly in the building from central bodies. of a progressive movement in the THE COMMUNIST trade unions, and the People's Front, in the A. F. of L. to be headed by as well as in the building of the Lewis. Those who favored this pro­ Party itself. posal, the so-called middle group headed by Harrison, were defeated Perspectives and Tasks by the diehard craft union clique. At the same time, a new issue has The convention, by not expelling arisen which did not exist before: as the C.I.O. unions, left the door to the powers of the Council and the open for further negotiations. The character of the A. F. of L. Howard resolution adopted and as interpreted has strongly emphasized this new by the Council, is as follows: ISSUe. 1. The Council has the power to Thus we can see that the prospects lift the suspension prior to, or after for the reunification of the A. F. of L. negotiations. received an additional blow at the 2. The committee previously set A. F. of L. convention. The Council up, with Harrison at the head, is the is unyielding and provocative, and standing committee which is to try to stubborn in its refusal to allow the or­ negotiate with the C.I.O. ganization of the unorganized, thus 3· Should no agreement be reached, actually forcing the split. The C.I.O. and should the C.I.O. take a further cannot and will not accept a com­ step which the Council would think promise on the terms of the Executive requires further action (in other Council. A compromise on their terms, words, expulsion), the Council must which means virtual capitulation, call a special convention. would be a betrayal of the interests 4· The Council will not, for the of the workers. present, ask for the unseating of C.I.O. In the face of this situation the union delegates from state federations most important task is the intensifica­ and central bodies, but there is no tion of the campaign for the organ­ question that it has the power and ization of the unorganized, and espe­ may do this if it finds it necessary and cially the steel workers, keeping the possible. C.I.O. united, while at the same time The decisions of the convention are developing a unity campaign through­ not merely a middle course between out all of the unions of the American lifting the suspension and the expul­ Federation of Labor. In the statement sion demanded by the diehards. Many of the Central Committee, issued to­ of the diehards voted for this course ward the close of the A. F. of L. con­ in the belief that this is the best way vention, we already gave our position to carry through the expulsion, by in favor of this course. trying to place the responsibility for This demands of us that we devel­ the split upon the C.I.O. This is seen op simultaneously the most intensive from the fact that the Council at its campaign of support for the organ­ meeting following the convention ization of the unorganized in the mass voted down a proposal for a com­ production industries, and at the promise with the C.I.O. which would same time carry the fight for unity, set up an industrial union department and against the splitting policies of THE A. F. OF L. CONVENTION 59 the Council into every craft union, account our general policy toward the into all state federations and ceritral C.I.O. and the Executive Council. bodies. We must strive to convince the Only if the relation of forces leaders of the C.I.O. to give support changes in favor of the C.I.O. through to all the struggles of the workers in the organization of important sections the other unions, as, for example, the of the unorganized and the simulta· present nationwide strike of the mari­ neous strengthening of the progressive time workers. Here, too, they must forces in the craft unions will unity be show to the workers everywhere the possible on a basis that will not com­ meaning of progressive trade unionism promise the fundamental aims of the in practice. C.I.O. We must also convince the leaders This demands that the line of the of the C.I.O. nationally and in the Party shall be made clear to the entire localities to take measures in the in­ Party and to all those workers whom terests of the workers through cham­ we influence. We must mobilize our pioning a legislative program in de­ full strength to carry through the line fense of the economic and political of the Party. It requires that we make interests of all workers, in the struggle clear to the workers the action of the against reaction and fascism, in sup­ A. F. of L. convention and mobilize port of the people's movement against them to fight for our policies. fascism and war, and in the building Our task in the C.I.O. unions is to of the Farmer-Labor Party. fight for the maintenance of the unity Our most important task is to mo­ and common action of all the C.I.O. bilize all our forces to assist in the or­ unions. We must oppose all tenden­ ganization of the unorganized, and cies in some of the C.I.O. unions to especially of the s~el workers, the withdraw from the C.I.O., and to auto and textile workers, as well as the make their own compromise with the millions of agricultural workers. Cam­ Council. -In those unions where this paigns in these industries will, of course danger exists (I.L.G.W.U., Hatters) stimulate the organization of other we must mobilize the rank and file workers, which must be supported by and all progressives to defeat such our Party in these industries and lo­ tendencies. calities. Our Party is showing through At the same time within the C.I.O. its work in the steel industry that it is unions we must carry on the fight for playing and can play an important improvement of the conditions of the role. Our experiences in the factories, workers, for trade union democracy, in the company unions, amon~ the Ne­ so that the workers in the other A. gro steel workers, the youth, the mobil­ F. of L. unions will see in the unions ization of the fraternal movement in affiliated to the C.I.O. an example of support of the campaign, the drawing progressive trade unionism. Naturally in of the women, have already greatly the character of our work in the C.I.O. contributed to the success achieved. unions, how we bring forward our But, frankly, we have in many of these proposals, how we organize the fight fields done very little, especially with for these proposals, must take into regard to the Negro workers, the

to- step step a a as as suspensions suspensions the the of of ing ing secure. secure. never never and and

lift­ immediate immediate time, time, (a) (a) any any for for at at calling calling effective effective unions unions fully fully be be cannot cannot

local local the the in in work work our our resolutions resolutions of of which which without without thousands thousands Party, Party, the the of of

adopt adopt to to essential essential is is building building it it the the issues, issues, course, course, of of mediate mediate And, And, etc. etc. per, per,

im­ the the and and pa­ action, action, shop shop the the convention convention nuclei, nuclei, the the to to shop shop the the of of ness ness

regard regard \!\lith \!\lith organization. organization. the the upon upon effective­ the the union, union, the the in in Party Party the the

leaders leaders their their of of shop, shop, the the hold hold in in Party Party the the bureaucratic bureaucratic but but generally, generally,

the the strengthen strengthen Not Not and and Party. Party. the the position position of of role role economic economic past-the past-the the the of of

lesson lesson another another their their forget forget not not us us worsen worsen let let will will And And movement movement labor labor

the the in in division division used. used. how how be be now now shown shown be be can can that that must must methods methods cial cial

they they Finally, Finally, spe­ and and Union. Union. character character Machinists' Machinists' mass mass the the the the with with ences ences

of of members members the the experi­ among among and and well-known well-known trades trades these these combining combining

building building the the in in by by results results necessary necessary approach approach an an hundred-fold hundred-fold with with drive drive

such such is is big big Especially Especially this this in in now now cooperation. cooperation. applied applied such such be be can can lessons lessons

from from lessons lessons the the draw draw and and calities calities these these All All strata. strata. special special other other and and

lo­ the the in in action action joint joint with with practice practice workers workers Negro Negro the the to to attention attention cial cial

in in beginning beginning amalgamation, amalgamation, for for grams grams spe· spe· for for need need the the to to departments; departments; and and

pro­ necessary, necessary, where where develop, develop, should should plants plants the the in in committees committees of of building building

We We workers. workers. skilled skilled the the of of wages wages the the the the shops, shops, the the in in work work to to centration; centration;

raise raise and and protect protect will will campaign campaign C.I.O. C.I.O. con· con· of of policy policy effe£tive effe£tive the the to to refer refer

the the how how them them show show We We must must tries. tries. I I top. top. the the from from comrades comrades active active few few

indus­ production production mass mass the the in in paign paign a a with with work work the the on on carrying carrying merely merely

cam­ C.I.O. C.I.O. the the with with conflict conflict in in not not not not and and organizations, organizations, Party Party lower lower

and and them, them, to to belong belong which which fields fields the the the the through through Party Party entire entire the the of of ization ization

in in and and unions, unions, these these for for eligible eligible are are mobil­ the the to to regard regard with with Letter Letter Open Open

they they where where unorganized unorganized the the of of tion tion the the in in outlined outlined tasks tasks the the to to refer refer I I

organiza­ the the for for 1933. 1933. of of programs programs Letter Letter Open Open practical practical the the of of especially especially

of of out out working working the the requires requires This This and and experiences, experiences, past past our our of of selves selves

unions. unions. their their of of tion tion our­ remind remind again again us us let let organized organized

destruc­ the the to to lead lead will will policies policies C.I.O. C.I.O. un­ the the organizing organizing of of work work the the In In

the the of of triumph triumph the the that that believing believing with. with. us us front front

into into workers workers many many frighten frighten to to leaders leaders con­ industries industries various various the the that that lems lems

craft craft the the for for possible possible it it made made that that prob­ special special the the for for allowances allowances due due

past past the the of of weaknesses weaknesses the the overcome overcome making making industries, industries, other other the the in in paign paign

must must we we Here Here cam· cam· unions. unions. organizing organizing the the non-C.I.O. non-C.I.O. to to the the force force equal equal

with with Party Party our our all all by by into into applied applied unions, unions, be be can can craft craft the the into into unity unity

union union trade trade for for campaign campaign fight fight steel steel the the the the of of bringing bringing lessons lessons The The

given given be be necessary. necessary. must must this this is is attention attention Special Special to to

before before than than movement. movement. labor labor favorable favorable the the more more are are tions tions

in in status status our our condi­ Party, Party, the the when when drive drive Farmer-Labor Farmer-Labor the the of of phase phase

the the of of building building the the intense intense unity, unity, more more of of the the in in issue issue the the now now Especially Especially

decided­ be be tasks. tasks. finally finally these these will will issues issues through through basic basic carrying carrying really really of of

purpose purpose the the for for all all where where is is experiences experiences Here Here these these of of unorganized. unorganized. the the of of

organization organization the the lessons lessons for for the the draw draw campaign campaign must must the the We We -in -in women. women. the the

of of in in drawing drawing the the test test and and real real the the workers, workers, meet meet we we young young where where is is Here Here

6o 6o COMMUNIST COMMUNIST THE THE THE A. F. OF L. CONVENTION 61 wards negotiations for unity; (b) Sup· terests of the workers. The A. F. of port to the steel campaign, including L. Council has evidently not forgotten financial support. the San Francisco general strike, the These resolutions should be sent to role of the Central Labor Unions in the international officials, and to the Toledo, Akron and other centers of Executive Council. More attention has struggle. Neither should we. The A. to be given to the conventions of these F. of L. Council is drawing the con­ unions, many of which will be held in clusions from the opposition of the the next year. majority of the Central Labor Unions Of greatest importance are our to the suspension of the C.I.O. unions. tasks in the state federations and in So should we. The A. F. of L. Council, the central labor bodies. The Central which opposes the Labor Party, is Labor Unions are especially important drawing the conclusion from the role to maintain the unity of the trade of the Central Labor Unions in the union movement in the face of the growing movement for a Farmer-La­ continuation of the suspensions. They bor Party, and even the role they will be in a mood for action as a played in Labor's Non-Partisan result of the decisions of the last con­ League. We must also draw our con­ vention which robbed them of their clusions. rights with regard to their effectiveness There has been quite an improve­ in strikes, in bringing forward issues ment in our work in the central bod­ at A. F. of L. Conventions, as well as ies. Our fractions have grown in the decision of the 55th Convention number and in effectiveness. But relative to Communists being barred things are not yet as they should be. as delegates to the Central Labor Take for example the fraction in the Unions. Central Labor Union in the largest Under these conditions, the Central city in the country-New York. Here Labor Unions, which are the closest our fraction is quite large and grow· bodies to the rank and file, having ing. Yet our work, though improved, delegates directly from the local is far from satisfactory. There are still unions, and to which are elected many comrades who do not (J.ttend the meet­ rank-and-file workers, are destined to ings of the Central Labor Union, not play perhaps a bigger role than we to speak of fraction meetings, where today realize. A hint of this role we questions are taken up and decided can sense from the fear the Executive upon which determine our effective­ Council has regarding the Central ness at the Central Labor Union meet­ _Labor Unions, the pains to which ings. There are even comrades in lo­ they went to try to stifle their voice. cals who take their time about elect­ Not only will they play a role in pre­ ing delegates. venting the split, and for reunifying Yet there can be no more important the labor movement, but the Central work than that of the delegates to Labor Unions will more and more the Central Labor Union. Supposing express the desires of the membership, one of our comrades would be elected and their common action in struggles to the City Council in New York. I for the economic and political in- am sure that he or she would attend

never never was was there there so so much much joy joy connected connected ism ism with with our our Party Party ever ever at at the the head. head.

I I am am sure sure that that most most of of us us feel feel that that masses masses with with us, us, to to the the goal goal of of social­

have have a a parliamentary parliamentary fraction. fraction. greater greater effectiveness, effectiveness, carrying carrying the the

bor bor Unions, Unions, as as we we should should where where we we ward ward many many times times faster, faster, with with ever ever

and and the the problems problems of of the the Central Central La­ stacles stacles in in the the road, road, we we shall shall go go for­

district district give give attention attention to to the the work work apply apply ourselves ourselves to to removing removing the the ob­

From From now now on on we we should should in in every every ing ing e:x;perience, e:x;perience, assures assures us us that that once once we we

issues. issues. and and Foster, Foster, in in the the masses, masses, in in our our grow­

tion tion to to more more specific specific trade trade union union the the leadership leadership of of Comrades Comrades Browder Browder

building building of of the the Labor Labor Party Party in in addi­ But But our our confidence confidence in in our our Party, Party, in in

we we can can advance advance the the movement movement for for the the yet yet solved, solved, that that impede impede this this advance. advance.

ward ward as as spokesmen spokesmen of of the the masses. masses. Here Here we we discover discover old old and and new new problems, problems, not not

erally. erally. Here Here our our comrades comrades come come for­ greater greater advance. advance. And And in in this this advance, advance,

toiling toiling population population of of the the city city gen­ sults sults which which form form the the basis basis for for an an ever ever

the the interests interests of of all all the the workers workers and and the the that that its its advances advances are are registered registered in in re­

coming coming forward forward with with our our proposals proposals in in its its work work is is more more and and more more effective, effective,

Union Union we we have have the the possibility possibility of of tion tion that that the the Party Party is is advancing, advancing, that that

cil. cil. For For here here in in the the Central Central Labor Labor it it is is a a joy joy that that comes comes from from the the realiza­

rades rades as as members members of of the the City City Coun­ great great response response among among the the masses. masses. But But

off off when when we we will will also also have have Party Party com­ are are not not fully fully taking taking advantage advantage of of the the

And And if if we we do, do, the the time time will will not not be be far far we we are are losing losing valuable valuable time-that time-that we we

we we ought ought to to give give it it the the same same attention. attention. a a joy joy that that is is tempered tempered by by a a feeling feeling that that

New New York York equally equally important? important? I I think think self-satisfaction. self-satisfaction. On On the the contrary. contrary. is is It It

Yet Yet is is not not the the Central Central Labor Labor Union Union in in It It is is not not a a joy joy that that is is coupled coupled with with any any

regularly, regularly, and and prepare prepare for for every every issue. issue. with with the the work work of of the the Party Party as as today. today.

THE THE COMMUNIST COMMUNIST THE NEGRO PEOPLE AND THE ELECTIONS

BY JAMES W. FORD

HE year 1936 was a critical was pathetic, up to the very day of T period in the history of the col­ election, to see the faith that some ored people, the most crucial election colored people placed in the victory since the Civil War. Eminllnt men of Landon. Their leaders controlled and women who had hitherto been all avenues of information and considered moored to Republicanism opinion. The Chicago Defender, one were dissatisfied with the nomination of the oldest and largest Negro news­ of Landon and the reactionary Re­ papers, was the mouthpiece of the publican program. A revolt took place Republican Party. It was regrettable among the rank and file. At the open­ that there was so little means of bring­ ing of the campaign the revolt had not ing the breadth of political discus­ crystallized; it was solidified during sion, going on throughout the country, the short period of a four-month cam­ into Chicago. Only the excellent cam­ paign. A tidal wave of resentment paign of Harry Haywood, Communist seemed to grow higher every day. candidate for Congress, brought the The Negro people were alarmed by real issues to the people of the South the facts piling up daily which ex­ Side of Chicago. posed the forces of reaction in and The Roosevelt landslide saw around the Republican Party. Old twenty-five Negroes elected to the state line colored politicians tried to con­ legislatures of nine states and one to vince them of the need to support the the Congress of the United States. The Republican Party. Roscoe Conkling majority were Democrats. In several Simmons, Perry Howard and other instances Negro Republicans were suc­ Negro Republican leaders in their ceeded by Negro Democrats. No Negro usual role of long standing service to legislative candidate running on the that party made extraordinary efforts Democratic ticket was defeated. to hold the Negro people to their old A Political Revolution ties. Negroes Break Old Ties Despite all of the work of the Chicago was the rock-ribbed haven Chicago Defender, in Chicago, which of Republicanism among Negroes. It is nominally a Republican stronghold, Negroes gave Roosevelt a majority of Speech delivered at the Plenum of the Cen­ their votes. tral ommittee of the Communist Party of the It was only in the second U.S.A., held December 4-6, 1936. and third wards of Chicago (as in THE COMMUNIST

Vermont and in Maine) that there was try the like of which had not been a Republican majority and this was seen since Reconstruction. the only Negro community anywhere A check-up on the underlying causes in the country. for political change among colored It is estimated that 20o,ooo Negroes people will reveal such depths as will voted in Pennsylvania, the majority shock the reactionaries and give a giving their vote to Roosevelt. Six warning to those who dare ignore the Negro Democrats were elected to the desires of an oppressed people for jus­ state legislature in that state. Pennsyl­ tice, opportunity and freedom. vania, which is nominally Republican, This triumphal political awaken­ is another example of the political ing, which is in the process of trans­ revolution that took place among formation, is a logical part of the de­ Negro voters. velopments shaking and reshaping the For the first time in history Negroes political structure of the whole coun­ in Michigan voted the Democratic try. The. Negro people face the strug­ ticket. gle to preserve and extend democracy Over 15o,ooo Negroes vottd-four to in America with their heads up, fight­ one in Harlem and two to one in ing and ready to play their part in Brooklyn-for Roosevelt. The Negroes building a People's Front in the g·ave Roosevelt a majority in every United States. state in the union where they voted in Hearst-Landon Soundly Thrashed large numbers. It is estimated that the vote was 75 per cent in New England; The Republican Party, which under 65 per cent in New Jersey; 6o per cent Lincoln successfully fought the slave­ in West Virginia; 6o per cent in Mis­ owning class, has now become the souri. In Kansas, where Roosevelt won most reactionary party in American by a majority of 5,ooo votes, Negroes politics-the party of modern indus­ voted two to one against Landon. trial slavery and reaction. Its reac­ Approximately 3,000 Negroes voted tionary character was the principal in Durham, North Carolina, and 3,ooo cause of its defeat in 1936. It was de­ in Raleigh. the majority going for feated by a combination of decisive Roosevelt. Two Negroes were elected sections of the population, by an magistrates in Durham on the Demo­ aroused popular sentiment which saw cratic ticket. In Raleigh, a Negro was in the forces behind Landon man­ elected justice of peace on the Demo­ eating tigers ready to devour every­ cratic ticket and became the first Ne­ thing held dear by liberty-loving gro to be elected to public office on people. any ticket since Reconstruction. The Republican-Liberty League In Indianapolis, Indiana, the Demo­ group had a shocking program. They cratic Party claimed every Negro pre­ intended to assault workers and toilers cinct by over 7 5 per cent. generally with a hatred and vengeance The Negro people emerged from never before seen in the country, cut this election in a far better position their wages and throw them off relief. than ever before. They had taken a They intended to persecute the for­ step in the political life of the coun- eign-born and strengthen the incite- THE NEGRO PEOPLE AND THE ELECTIONS ment of murderous jingoism, anti­ ary program of the Republican Party Semitism; racial discrimination and and the demands of the Negro people lynchings in the spirit of the Black -President Roosevelt performed like Legion and the Ku Klux Klan, and a man on a tight rope, swaying from to throw the United States in its for­ one side to the other. And following eign policy on the side of fascist insti­ the election, Roosevelt, unless he is gators of war everywhere. This Hearst­ checked, will lean as far away from Landon program was defeated. the issues of the Negro people as pos­ sible. Although Negroes fought for A Program of Life Against Death their demands (which everybody The Communist Party at its Ninth knows cannot be fully realized Convention held in June, 1936, stated: through the Democratic Party), and helped to pile up a landslide against "The Negro people are becoming deeply conscious of the sinister forces of reaction reaction, it would be a mistake to that are arising in the country. \Ve see, most think that Roosevelt was given a of all, the Hoovers, the AI Smiths, the Tal­ blank check. The Negro was cautious, madges and William Randolph Hearst with and fearful of Roosevelt's allegiance the Liberty League behind them, making to the reactionary politicians of the energetic efforts to foster the reactionary Republican program on the country. How South. terrible would be the fate of the Negroes if The Negroes' vote was of no small the Republican-Liberty Leaguers came to consideration; they were wooed by power. The notorious Black Legion is a child both sides. They faced a complicated of Republican reaction." situation; a collapsing two-party sys­ The demands of the Negro people tem, the hide-bound traditions of Re­ are age-old and were set forth in pro­ publicanism and the emergence of a grammatic form as follows: new political movement which has al­ Real emancipation of the Negro ready taken organized form in many people. sections of the country. One must not The right of colored men and wom­ underestimate these factors. en to complete equality, equal rights In the past the interests of the vari­ to jobs, equal pay for equal work, the ous financial groups , were effectively full right to organize, vote, serve on obscured within the two-patty struc­ juries and hold public office. ture and the Negro was trapped into The establishment of heavy penal­ supporting his worst enemies. The ties against mob murder, floggers and situation was made more tragic be­ kidnappers, with the death penalty for cause of the leadership of the old-line lynchers. Negro politicians who understood The enforcement of the 13th, 14th nothing about the capitalist divisions and 15th Amendments to the Consti­ within the limits of the two-party sys­ tution of the United States. tem, and cared nothing about the pos­ Full cooperation in building a sible forces that had common interests Farmer-Labor Party, a People's Front with the Negro. to preserve and extend democracy in One example will make this clear. America. During the election campaign, Perry Between two positions-the reaction- Howard, Negro Republican leader, 66 THE COMMUNIST delivered an address at Omaha, Ne­ they voted on the Democratic ticket; braska, in which he declared: "The they acted generally on the basis of a preponderance of intelligence is in the system of issues and in certain places Republican Party. Capital is in the took direct part in the movement for Republican Party. The Democratic a Farmer-Labor Party. Party is the poor man's party. The How was the colored voter ap­ blind cannot lead the blind." proached in the elections? In the early It would be going too far to honor part of the campaign there was un­ Mr. Howard's attack by calling it certainty everywhere. Certain key slander against the great working class, states were considered doubtful. The nor is it merely demagogy; it is pure strategy of both the Republicans and ignorance; it was a complete sell-out. the Democrats was to play on the He "received $6oo per week plus ex­ "solid" Negro vote in these states, as penses during the campaign". the "balance of power", and make every effort to win it to their side. Breaking the Two-Party System The Pittsburgh Courier, one of the But the two-party system did not largest Negro newspapers in the coun­ prove an insurmountable obstacle to try and supporter of Roosevelt, de­ the colored voter in 1936. What was clared: the character of the two-party system? "In many states the Negro vote is going Earl Browder, presidential candidate to be the deciding factor in this election. of the Communist Party, has described Colored people should be alert to this fact it with great clearness: and not be backward in pressing their ad­ vantage, no matter for which party they have "For generations the two-party system of decided to vote.... These voters are likely American capitalism was based upon a re­ to decide the election." gionalism that roughly corresponded to basic economic groups. These were the industrial Mr. Paul W. Ward, well-known banking North, the cotton-tobacco South, the political commentator, wrote from wheat-dairy-livestock-mining West. The party Washington, D.C., in August: struggle was largely between the bour­ geoisie of these three regions for their special "It is easy to underestimate the grip which interests. They brought forward such issues the Republican machine bosses have upon in addition as were considered necessary to the 1 ,5oo,ooo potentia I Negro voters in the undermine the mass following of the rival five key states. Only the members of the group, or to whip up their own supporters upper crust of the Negro community are to greater enthusiasm. With Republicans as to any appreciable degree political free the party of Northern capitalism, and Demo­ agents. The rest do not vote: they are voted. crats that of the special agrarianism of the Like his white brothers living in similar South, the basic problem of their conflict was squalor in the industrial bowels and back­ always which of them would win the alle· washes of cities, the Negro has been noto­ giance of the West. This regionalism was riously venal, placing his vote at the dispo­ accentuated by the federal system of govern­ sal of whichever machine at the moment can mental structure, with its 48 sovereign states." pay the highest price. The G.O.P. will have The Negro people broke through buying power again this year-bigger buy­ this superstructure. They made a de­ ing power, probably, than ever before-and all the factors which should make the Negro cisive swing away from the Republi­ want to vote for Roosevelt must be dis­ can Party; in some parts of the South counted in the light of that fact." THE NEGRO PEOPLE AND THE ELECTIONS Despite the fact that all those The cover page carried pictures of things for which the Negro people Lincoln, Landon and Knox. The pic­ have striven since Reconstruction have ture of Frederick Douglass, the great not been fought for, nor has the Negro abolitionist, was carried on an denial of their rights been challenged inside page. However, on the very by the Republican Party, Repub­ front page with the pictures of Lin­ lican Congressman John H. Robinson coln, Landon and Knox was the fol­ had the effrontery to declare on the lowing well-known quotation of Fred­ floor of Congress in June: erick Douglass:

"There is no path out of the Republican "One of the noblest emotions that ever Party that does not lead directly into the animated the human heart is gratitude. Can there be anything more ignoble than in­ Democratic Party-away from our friends di­ gratitude? I have seen the swine in the moun­ rectly to our enemies.''• tains of Kentucky fill themselves day by day Landon was transformed into a on the choicest nuts that fell from the oak, modern Lincoln. The pamphlet the chestnut and the beech, but I have never stated: yet seen one hog look up to see the source of his bounty." "These two men stand out in the histor) of Kansas: John Brown who kept it free as The political campaign conducted a territory and Lincoln who, in admitting it by the Republican Party among Ne­ to the Union, kept it a free state. Now a third, Alfred M. Landon, stands upon the groes was intense. The Chicago De­ threshold of greatness." fender was the outstanding spokesman of Republicanism. On October 3, it The Republican Party has been in began the first of a series of Red­ power in this country for all except baiting articles, attacking Roosevelt 16 years since the Civil War, yet they as a Communist. This article was en­ had the effrontery to appeal to Ne­ titled: "Which Way from the Cross­ groes for votes in the face of the viola­ roads?-A Contrast of Roosevelt with tion of their political and civil rights. Russia." • Douglass made this statement in a critical It carried quotations taken from period in the history of the Republican Party while presiding over the National Convention speeches or writings of Tugwell, the of Colored Citizens, held at New Orleans, in so-called Communist "brain-trust" ad­ 1872. According to Douglass' remarks at that convention, "eminent men who had hitherto viser of Roosevelt, and of Karl Marx, been looked upon as the pillars of Repub­ Stalin, Orjonikidze, Voroshilov, and licanism had become dissatisfied and were breaking away from the Republican Party. Manuilsky, which intended to prove The men in revolt were Messrs. Trumbull, that Roosevelt was a Communist on Schurz, Greeley, and Sumner. Mr. Schurz had already succeeded in destroying the Repub­ the order of these men. Obviously few lican Party in the State of Missouri, and it Negroes took seriously this cry of seemed to be his ambition to be the founder of a new party, and to him more than any "Communism". other man belongs the credit of what was An elaborate piece of propaganda once known as the Liberal Republican Party which made Horace Greeley its standard consisting of an eighty-page pamphlet, bearer in the .campaign of that year". published by the Colored Voters Di­ It may also be noted, while speaking of allegiance to party, that it was in the same vision of the Republican National year that Frederick Douglass was nominated Committee, was addressed to the for Vice-President of the United States, not on the Republican Party ticket, but on the "American Colored People". ticket of the Equal Rights League. 68 THE COMMUNIST

They listed a series of laws passed by fered within the limits of that party. Democratic state governments disfran­ They voted in the South to elect col­ chising the Negro people as follows: ored men to office; they participated "Alabama in tgoo; Georgia in 1902; in the organization of state and county Louisiana in 1897; Mississippi in committees in North Carolina. A col­ t8go; North Carolina in tgot; South ored man was elected to office in the Carolina in 1895; Virginia in 1902."* State of Nebraska, making it possible To top their deceit the Republican to raise special issues and problems of politicians took full credit for the fact Negroes in that state. that the Scottsboro boys are still alive. The colored people were guided In their pamphlet there was a full­ and influenced by the great issues page cut of the Scottsboro scene. A which were agitating the minds of picture of a prison with the Scottsboro masses of people in this country. boys pleading fQr mercy was in the \Vhile important Southern white poli­ background. In the foreground is a ticians were pondering the break-down large picture of Chief Justice Hughes of the two-party system "Negroes were of the United States Supreme Court seeking office in the South''. When, carrying a law book. A lyncher, rope after the election, these same Southern in hand, approaches to drag the Scotts­ gentlemen declared that "victory boro boys from the prison but Justice could have been won as well without Hughes raises a hand high while an the Negro as without the Southern emphatic "no" comes from his mouth. vote", one can see that something has If this appeal to traditional Repub­ taken place in American politics. It is licanism had succeeded, Perry Howard significant when such an important and Roscoe Simmons would be gloat­ political commentator of the South as ing over the "delivery" of the vote of John Temple Graves says that "the the Negro people-to their worst shift of the Negro to the Democratic enemies. But these men lost sight of ranks establishes him now as a pos­ one little thing: the Negro people are session to be retained and a prize to thinking as never before. They saw be sought in every election". through the party of the rich who use . Roosevelt was clever enough to pre­ such gentlemen as Messrs. Perry How­ tend to voice the hopes and aspira­ ard, Simmons and the others to en­ tions of the Negro people. One of the trap them. most important weapons which he Issues, demands and principles had at his disposal was a partial swept the Negro people into the land­ though far. from satisfactory record of slide for Roosevelt. They were dis­ improvement in the economic condi­ criminating as to the internal relation tions of Negroes. of forces within the Democratic Party. Roosevelt was able to put forward They took what advantages were of- in a widely circulated pamphlet before the Negro people the following accom­ *During each of these years the Republi­ can Party was in power nationally. The Four­ plished program: teenth Amendment to the Constitution was in force and its provision provided that, "the "Unemployment relief inaugurated by the Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this Roosevelt administration saved millions of article". Negro men and women and children from THE NEGRO PEOPLE AND THE ELECTIONS 6g extreme want by direct relief, W.P.A. and Ickes spoke. They trust that "there 1'.\V.A. No racial discrimination permitted shall be no forgotten races". hy the federal government. Let us hear the expression from "The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) every section of the country of the started in 19~\3 by President Roosevelt has given employment to over l!)O.ooo young hope and determination of the Negro Negro men. people. I quote from leading Negro "The National Youth Administration newspaper comments and from the (N.Y.A.) put in operation by the Roosevelt opinions of men in public life through administration gives direct educational and out the country: economic benefits to 50.000 young Negro men and women. "This election has been a clear-cut man­ "Negro appointments to key pu,Jtwns in date. It has been an unmistakable answer \Vashington and throughout the country by to reaction and the old order. It has been a the Roosevelt administration exceed any such constitutional way of saying that the great number in history. majority of the people of these United States "Against economic maladjustment the want to move towards humanitarian progress Roosevelt administration stands as a symbol and will take newly carved out roads to that of national revolt against the economic mal­ goal despite the selfish stalling of the privi­ adjustment sponsored by twelve years of Re­ ledged forces of reaction. publican misrule." "Let it not be said of you [Roosevelt] after January that by one act or a single subter­ One of Roosevelt's important ad­ fuge you failed to act toward wiping out the dresses was delivered at the famous American disgrace of racial discrimination in Negro University, Howard University, all New Deal administration. where he declared: "This should mean a complete equalization of jobs and relief to all workers without re­ "As far as it was humanly possible, the gard to race or creed.... Your appointment government has followed the policy that should comprise a proportionate number of among American citizens there should be no colored citizens and this should obtain from forgotten men and no forgotten races." top to bottom. The economic opportunity for our citizens should be so broadened ... there Young men and women of Howard should be absolutely no difference per capita University followed this up with a wages and opportunities between colored and strike demanding that the football white. "This is what we interpret your statement team get more and better food. Striking on 'no forgotten races' to mean." (Editorial, students of North Carolina's Negro A Baltimore Afm-American.) and T College were persuaded to go "We have been honest in telling our read­ back to school only after the governor ers that the New Deal does not completely of the state promised them that their satisfy the natural and justifiable claims of demands and grievances would be the Negro to the fullest participation in every met. Roosevelt never expected such field of American life. • "We congratulate the President upon the action so soon after the elections. almost complete mandate he has received from the people and take particular pride in The Negroes' Mandate to Roosevelt the role the Negro voter played.... "The President has recognized our claim to ~What is the meaning of this great complete integration in our national scheme, swing of the Negroes from Republi­ and nothing short of that goal will be wholly canism to Roosevelt? They believed in satisfying ... equality of opportunity in every the promises made to them. They. ex­ branch of government.... Lynching remains pect some of the equality of which a dark spot on the American system of THE COMMUNIST justice. Nothing less than stiff federal legis­ Supreme Court." (New York Amsterdam lation will curb mob murder." (Editorial, News.) New York Amsterdam News.) "Some of the horny-headed problems of discrimination and governmental inequalities "The voters out-thought these so-called are staring us in the face. leaders. Took facts which they had seen with "The number of our citizens on relief still their own eyes and heard with their own increases or remains at a higher level than ears, and reached their own conclusions as whites in proportion to population. to the best way to vote for their best "Not one single family on relief is getting interests. . . . sufficient to take proper care of a family, nor "We are further concerned about the pos­ are the single men and women being thus sibilities of the Negroes regardless of their helped receiving sufficient to think about political opinions, being able to get together mating and bringing children into the world." on a program which will advance the race." (William N. Jones, Baltimore Afro-American.) (Editorial, St. Louis Call.) "The Negro can expect nothing unless he exerts mass pressure after election .... Politi­ "If Mr. Roosevelt goes to bat with the cal history shows that governments respond Supreme Court and licks it ... he'll be a to mass pressure. If their leadership were second Abraham Lincoln to colored people. well directed, Negroes with their balance of "Many people do not know it, because it power vote could demand almost anything has been kept quiet, but the Supreme Court they want in this country." (Lester Granger, has been far more unfriendly to the colored Secretary of Workers' Councils of the Na­ race than Congress ever was." (Carl Murphy, tional Urban League, St. Louis Call. Baltimore Afro-American.) "We are concerned now with our second "At any rate, it must be driven home to emancipation, and will cast our vote only the Southern Congressional leaders that the to those who are leading us towards that November 3rd vote was a mandate from the day.... The new American Labor Party, entire nation to run the country so all the polling 300,000 votes, marks itself as the people get a square deal. It is not a mandate real third party of New York state. It, from the Solid South and a few scattered too, must get busy if it wants to achieve Northern Democratic states. any results in Harlem. It must put Negroes "These congressional leaders will have to on its Executive Committees. It must fight do something about the denial of the vote within unions for Negro membership. It must. to the Negroes in the South. They must do organize Negro labor. something about lynching. They must act "Roosevelt is in. He is in with a decisive to remedy the starvation, misery and slavery mandate from the American laboring masses of the sharecropping system. They must use to govern in the interests of the majority. their influence to see that the Negro is em­ His social ideals must not be allowed to ployed in private industry, and not made a waver, but he must continue vigorously his permanent pauper class. These things are fight for those who put him in. The Negro essential to a new deal, a more abundant is demanding of him an endorsement of the life, and a 'happier America'. anti-lynching bill and a more prominent "The outlook is not so rosy for the Negro. place in the administration of national But the best that can be said is that the affairs." (Dr. A. Clayton Powell, Jr., New forces of reaction have been beaten back for York City.) the moment. A hard battle is ahead of us." (Roy Wilkins, Assistant National Secretary Here, culled from a cross-section of of the National Association for the Advance­ Negro opinion throughout the coun­ ment of the Colored People.) try, is the mandate of the Negro peo­ ple to Roosevelt following the elec­ "The Negro population and vote demand that the governor name a Negro to fill the tions. Space does not permit other vacancy in the Appelate Division of the opinions and direct :expressions of THE NEGRO PEOPLE AND THE ELECTIONS the people's support to these demands. Terre Haute was considered by leading In Harlem on December 19 a great Negro people a part of the struggle demonstration of relief workers took for civil rights for Negroes. His speech place demanding no cut in relief, no at the state university in Virginia, discrimination against Negroes. where he raised the problems of the The program of the Communist Negro in the South, was also hailed, Party became the program of masses as well as his great fight at Tampa, of Negroes. A careful survey of the Florida. demands listed above compared with The candidacy of James W. Ford the platform put forward by the Com­ for the Vice-Presidency of the United munist Party in the elections will States on the Communist Party ticket show that the Communist Party was was praised as a great honor to the correct in its demands for the Negro Negro people, and the Communist people. It was this program that we Party was hailed as the only real fight­ fought for. er for Negro rights. I traveled more than 13,000 miles in 38 states; spoke The Communist Party Fights for at 50 great mass meetings organized Negro Rights by the Communist Party and at more On the day following the elections than 20 gatherings of Negro leaders the Associated Negro Press sent out and people. the following dispatch: One of the features of the cam­ paign was a national radio broad­ "One of the surprises of the recent national cast on "The Negro People and elections-apart from the almost complete loss of identity of the Grand Old Party­ the 1936 Elections". Two thousand was the remarkable gain, nationally, made by replies congratulating the Communist the Communist Party in both voting strength Party on its stand were received by and interest aroused throughout the country. the national campaign committee as Bett~ organization methods, timeliness of a result of this broadcast. Several came their appeal to the workers of the nation and their unequivocal stand against jim-crowism, from foreign countries-Canada, Scot­ bigotry and color prejudice are some of the land and one from a West Indian reasons advanced by political observers for Negro in Peru, South America, etc. the showing made by the Communists at the In addition to this my campaign present election_ For the second time, a consisted of twenty-two local radio Negro, James W. Ford of Alabama, was the Communist candidate for Vice-President." broadcasts. In all of these speechs the problems of the Negro people Comrade Browder's visit to the were raised as an integral part of the Scottsboro boys in the county jail in struggle of the entire American peo­ Birmingham, Alabama, during his ple. Some of these speeches were fea­ campaign in the South was one of the tured in the locality in which they outstanding events in this whole cam­ were delivered. An outstanding meet­ paign and was hailed by the Negro ing was one at Durham, N. C., which press in every section of the country. was preceded by a local radio broad­ Nearly every one of 250 weekly Negro cast that aroused the people of the newspapers carried Browder's picture community to the problems of the with the Scottsboro boys. His fight at Negro in the South. A sentence or two THE COMMUNIST

(rom that speech may be worth re­ of effectively pooling their political peating: power to realize their demands.

"As long as my people can be kept in a One outstanding example of this condition of slavery the whole toiling was support given to the building of population of this part of the country, white the All-People's Party in Harlem, and black, will continue to exist at the pres­ which brought together many diverse ent frightful low level, or be driven lower. groups and organizations on the basis of a program of the people of that "We declare that terror against my peo­ ple must stop. Mob rule must end. It can community in line with the general be ended by invoking heavy penalties against policies for a People's Front in this mob rule, against floggings and kidnappings. country. Lynching must be made a federal crime. The The All-People's Party in its polit­ 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Con­ ical campaign and in its organiza­ stitution must be enforced. Right here it must be stated that neither the Republican tional work was a great success. It was nor Democratic Pa~·ty has attempted to en­ hailed by feaders of political opinion force these amendments in the South." throughout the country. The All­ People's Party in Harlem pooled al­ Another angle was brought into the together about 7,ooo votes. This vote, problem of the Negro people in a together with the vote cast for the radio broadcast delivered at Los American Labor Party, the Commu­ Angeles, California: nist and Socialist Parties, brought the "In the film industry the most frightful total potential vote for independent discrimination is practiced against my peo­ political action, in Harlem, for a ple-the colored people. It is seldom that People's Front, a Farmer-Labor Party, any Negro actor or actress is given a decent part.... Negro extras and even those who to a grand total of approximately achieve some degree of acclaim as artists 20,000. are compelled to perform in such a way The Communist campaign in the as to foster the Hitler theory of 'white State of Virginia was one of the out­ racial superiority'.... standing political events in the South. "When we speak of equal rights for the Donald Burke, candidate for the Sen­ Negro people we remember that in the film industry there must be a real drive to realize ate against Carter Glass, received g,ooo equal rights for the colored workers and votes, and Ed Wright, Negro congres­ artists. There must be a stop to this policy sional candidate in Norfolk, received of forcing colored people to take parts that 500 votes; showing excellent possi­ degrade their people and encourage the bilities for progressive political ac­ disgusting ideas of fascism." tion which is bound to develop in the Unite Political Power South. The task that lies before the Negro The Communist Party thus fore­ people is to strengthen their forces saw all the issues that faced the Negro organizationally, in the trade union people in the elections. Our strategy movement, and particularly in the also included the leading of the Negro C.I.O. movement, in the unemployed people in an organized manner to­ field and in the movement for peace. ward a movement for independent President Roosevelt promised many political action as the only sure means things during the election campaign. THE NEGRO PEOPLE AND THE ELECTIONS 73 He underscored those promises by say­ ple, which has under way a movement ing that ~'For all these things we have for congressional support for anti­ only just begun to fight". lynching legislation, and the splendid The most immediate task before united front activities of the National the Negro people is to develop a broad Negro Congress give a real base for united front legislative program, to broadening and extending the move­ fight for this program in the next ment for effective legislation in the Congress of the United States. It must next Congress in the interests of the be a broad unity struggle. Only unity colored people. In the State of Cali­ in mass struggle can bring results. fornia, Isaac Hawkins, a member of This legislative program should be de­ the Executive Committee of the Na­ veloped around the following issues: tional Negro Congress, was elected Guarantee the Negro people com­ to the State Legislature. plete equality in every phase of life; equal rights to jobs; equal pay for "The spirit of the age-the voice of inspira­ tion, the deep longings of the human soul, equal work; the right to organize, vote, the conflict of right with wrong, the upward serve on juries and hold public office. tendency of the oppressed throughout the Abolish segregation and discrimina­ world abound with evidence, complete and tion against Negroes. Establish heavy ample, of the final triumph of right over penalties against floggers, kidnappers, wrong, of freedom over slavery, equality over caste. To doubt this is to forget the with the death penalty for lynchers. great past, and blind our eyes to the present. Enforcement of the 13th, qth and "It i8 more than a mere figure of speech 15th Amendments to the Constitution. to say, that we are-as a people-chained Support the bill advanced by the Na­ together. We are one people-one in common tional Association for the Advance­ degradation, one in popular estimation. As ment of Colored People against lynch­ one arises all most rise-as one falls, all must fall. Every one of us should be ashamed to ing. consider himself free, while his brother is As One Rises, All Rise a slave. There should be no time too pre­ cious, no calling too holy, no place too Already the National Association sacred, to make room for this cause." (Fred­ for the Advancement of Colored Peo- erick Douglass.) LENIN-THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER

BY A. MARKOFF

HIRTEEN years have elapsed workers, intellectuals, etc., who, while T since the great leader of the sympathizing with the young republic, Russian working class, the genius of lost heart at the death of Lenin, be­ the great October Socialist Revolu­ came pessimistic and had great fears tion, was snatched away from the as to the future of the Soviet Repub­ workers of the world by an untimely lic. The opposition within the Com­ death. On August 30, 1918, the munist Party, led by Trotsky, was to treacherous hand of an assassin, Fan­ many a sign of the beginning of dis­ ny Kaplan, member of the Socialist integration of the forces of the revo­ Revolutionary Party, sent a bullet lution. into the body of Lenin, which finally There was, however, a third group, snuffed out the life of the greatest a very large number of toilers in the leader, organizer, teacher and friend Soviet Republic and masses of people of the toiling masses the world over. in other countries who mourned V. I. Lenin died January 21, 1924. deeply the immeasurable loss, but The death of Lenin shocked the who understood that men like Lenin, entire world. Tens, nay, hundreds of men like Marx and Engels, do not millions of people mourned their ir­ disappear even after their death. reparable loss. Their life's work lives on and becomes There were those to whom the a greater and greater force as their death of Lenin meant a new ray of ideas, teachings become the property hope. The former exploiters and rob­ of the masses. These people under­ bers of the Russian people, the for­ stood the words inscribed on the ban­ mer landlords, White Guard ele­ ner of the Communist Party of the ments, former nobility, capitalist Soviet Republic: Lenin is dead - forces in other countries and class Leninism lives. enemy agents in the Soviet Republic Five days after Lenin's death the -they all rejoiced; they saw an early Second Congress of .Soviets was in ses­ fall for the new workers' republic, a sion. On this day, January 26, 1924, return to the rule of capitalists and Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary landlords. The bourgeois press the of the Communist Party of the Soviet world over predicted rapid disinte­ Republic, delivered his famous speech gration within the ranks of the Com­ on the "Heritage of Lenin". In his munist Party of the Soviet Union, the speech, Comrade Stalin took a number breaking down of Soviet power. of vows. He, in the name of the toilers Then there were many among of the young Republic, vowed: 74 LENIN-THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER .. 75 1. To hold aloft and guard the ranks with the purpose of disrupting purity of the great title of member of the work. the Party. The purity of the great title of 2. To guard the unity of the Party. member of the Party, the unity of the 3· To guard and strengthen the Party, have been guarded and dictatorship of the proletariat. strengthened. This vow has been ful­ 4· To strengthen with all his might filled. The banner of Leninism is held the alliance between fhe workers and aloft by the Communist Party of the peasants. U.S.S.R. .5· To consolidate and expand the The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is Union of Republics. Guarded and Strengthened 6. To strengthen the Red Army and Navy. Thirteen years ago Comrade Stalin 7· To strengthen and expand the vowed to guard and strengthen the union of the toilers of the whole world dictatorship of the proletariat. Has -the Communist International. this vow been fulfilled? The dictator­ Thirteen years have gone by. The ship of the proletariat has been Communist Party of the Soviet Union, guarded and has been strengthened under the leadership of the closest manyfold. Today the dictatorship of friend and best disciple of Lenin, our the proletariat emerges as the broad­ great and beloved Comrade Stalin, est, all-inclusive democracy ever con­ emerged as the strongest, most unified ceived by human society. Party of the working class in the en­ \1\'hereas in the capitalist world tire world; a Party enjoying the love democracy, wherever it still exists, and confidence of the 17o,ooo,ooo peo­ is being curtailed; whereas in the fas­ ple of the U.S.S.R. cist countries the people are denied There appeared, froiu time to time, the most elementary rights of citizen­ elements who tried to break the unity ship-in the U.S.S.R. the new Stalinist in the Party, who tried to create dis­ Constitution emerges as the highest sension, who organized oppositions form of democracy, a democracy within the Party ranks against the based on a socialist economy, without Leninist line of the building of social­ exploiting classes; a 'democracy based ism in the U.S.S.R. on social production and distri-bution. The Communist Party of the Soviet "They talk about democracy. But what is Union, under the leadership of Stalin, democracy? Democracy in capitalist countries directed a heavy blow against those where there are antagonistic classes is in who tried to interfere with the suc­ the last analysis democracy for the strong, democracy for the propertied minority. De­ cessful building and consolidating of mocracy in the U.S.S.R., on the contrary, is the new victories of socialism. The democracy for all. But from this it follows Trotsky Opposition of 1923-24; the that the principles of democracy are violated Trotsky-Zinoviev-Kamenev block of not by the draft of the new Constitution of 1926-these have been successfully the U.S.S.R. but by the bourgeois consti­ destroyed, eliminated from the Party tutions. "That is why I think that the Constitution ranks. The cleansing of the Party has of the U.S.S.R. is the only thoroughly demo­ eliminated many who came into its cratic constitution in the world. THE COMMUNIST

"And that is how matters stand with re­ U.S.S.R. that has taken place during gard to the bourgeois criticism of the draft the thirteen years since the death of of the ne"· Constitution of the U.S.S.R."" Lenin is brilliantly expressed in the The dictatorship of the proletariat, speech of Comrade Stalin at the spe­ in the words of Comrade Stalin, is cial Eighth Congress of Soviets. strengthened precisely because its base Changes m the U.S.S.R. is broader, it has been transformed from I92.f. to I9J6 into a more flexible, hence more pow­ erful system of state direction of "The Constitution Commission was to in­ troduce changes into the Constitution operat· society. ing at present, which was adopted in 1924, "If they interpret the expansion of the taking into account the changes in the life base of the dictatorship of the working of the U.S.S.R. in the direction of socialism class and the transformation of the dic­ brought about in the period from 1924 to tatorship into a more flexible and conse­ our days. quently more powerful system of state guid­ "\Vhat changes have occurred in the life ance of society, not as a strengthening of the of the U.S.S.R. during the period 1924-1936? dictatorship of the working class, but as its "That was the first period of the New Eco­ weakening, or even its renunciation, then it nomic Policy, when Soviet power permitted is permissible to ask: 'Do these gentlemen a certain revival of capitalism, along with know at all what the dictatorship of the the general development of socialism, when working class is?' it calculated that, in the process of competi­ "I mmt admit the draft of the new Consti­ tion between the two economic systems-tile tution really does leave in force the regime capitalist and the socialist-it would organ­ of the dictatorship of the working class, and ize the superiority of the socialist system over also leaves unchanged the present leading the capitalist system. position of the Communist Party of the U.S. "The task was, in the process of this com­ S.R.""" petition, to consolidate the position of so· To Strengthen the Alliance Between cialism, to attain the liquidation ot the capi­ talist elements and consummate the victory the Workers and Peasants of the socialist system as the basic system of The U.S.S.R. has been transformed national economy. into one of the most highly developed "At that time our industry presented an unenviable picture, especially heavy industry. industrial countries, based on the True, it was recovering little by little, but it social ownership of the means of pro­ had not yet raised its output to anywhere duction. Industrialized agriculture on near the pre-war level. a collective basis has brought about a "It was based on the old, backward, scanty firm bond between workers and peas­ technique. It was developing, of course, in ants. The difference between town the direction of socialism. At that time the share of the socialist sector formed about So and country is being obliterated; the per cent of our industry. But still the sector new working class and the new peas­ of capitalism held at least 20 per cent of antry emerge as common builders of industry in its hands. socialism, builders of a happy life, "Our agriculture presented a still more un­ a happy people, leading in the direc­ enviable picture. It is true that the landlord class had already been done away with, but tion of communism. as compared to that class, the agricultural The tremendous change in the capitalist kulak class still formed a rather important force. "Stalin on the New Soviet Constitution, "Agriculture as a whole at that· time re­ p. 23, International Publishers, New York. "*Ibid., pp. 21-22. sembled a boundless ocean of small individ- LENIN-THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER 77 ual peasant farms with their backward medi­ "Everyone knows the kulaks in agriculture eval technique. There were in formation have been liquidated and that the small in­ isolated points and little islands in this dividual peasant farm sector with its back­ ocean, collective farms and state farms which, ward medieval technique now occupies an strictly speaking, were not yet of any really insignificant place. The share of individual serious importance in our national economy. farms in agriculture, as far as sown area is "The collective farms and state farms were concerned, now comprises no more than two weak, while the kulaks were still in their to three per cent. strength. At that time we did not talk abont "One cannot but note the fact that the col­ the liquidation of kulaks, bnt of restricting lective farms now have at their disposal them. 316,ooo tractors with a total of 5,7oo,ooo "The same thing can be said of the goods horsepower, and, together with the state turnover of the country. The socialist sector farms, they possess over 4oo,ooo tractors with of goods turnover amounted to some 50-6o 7,58o,ooo horsepower. per cent, no more, while all the rest was "As for distribution throughout the coun­ occupied by merchants, speculators and other try, the merchants and speculator& are now private tiaders. completely expelled from this sphere. The "Such was the picture of our economy in whole field of distribution is now in the 1924- hands of the state, the cooperative societies "What have we in 1936? and the collective farms. "While previously we had the first period "A new Soviet trade has come into being of the New Economic Policy, the beginning and it is a trade without speculators, a of the New Economic Policy, a certain revi­ trade without capitalists. val of capitalism, today we have the end of "Thus the complete victory of the socialist the New Economic Policy, the period of the system in all spheres of the national economy complete liquidation of capitalism in all is now a fact. This means that exploitation of spheres of national economy. man by man is abolished-liquidated-while "Let us start from the fact that our in­ the socialist ownership of the implements and dustry during this period has grown into a means of production is established as the gigantic force. Now it is no longer possible unshakable basis of our Soviet society. to call it weak and badly equipped techni­ "As a result of all these changes in the cally. On the contrary, it is now based on national economy of the U.S.S.R., we have new, rich and modern technique, with a now a new socialist economy, knowing neither strongly developed heavy industry and still crises nor unemployment, neither poverty nor more strongly developed machine-building ruin, and giving to the citizens every possi­ industry. bility to live prospero';'s and cultured lives. "Most important is the fact that capital­ "Such, in the main, are the changes which ism has been completely expelled from the took place in our economy during the period sphere of our industry, and the socialist form from 1924 to 1936." " of production is now the system which alone dominates the sphere of our industry. "The fact that in volume of production The banner of Lenin and Leninism our present socialist industry exceeds pre­ is held aloft in the common bond be­ war industry more than seven-fold cannot be tween the workers and peasants of the regarded as a trifle. U.S.S.R. "In the sphere of agriculture, instead of Under the skillful guidance of the an ocean of small individual peasant farms genius of socialist construction, Com­ with weak technique and a preponderance of kulaks, we now have mechanized production rade Stalin, the working class of the conducted on the largest scale anywhere in U.S.S.R., together with the toiling the world, equipped with modern technique masses of the peasantry, carried in the form of an all-embracing system of collective and state farms. "Ibid., pp. 3-6. THE COMMUNIST

through a most gigantic task of build­ of free asylum for political refugees, ing socialism in the U.S.S.R. take upon themselves the defense of Forces inimical to the interests of an arch-assassin. Leon Trotsky, who the success of socialism emerged every engineered the foul murder of one of now and then in the Soviet Union; the most beloved leaders of the people forces of destruction, of wrecking and of the Soviet Union, Sergei Mirono­ sabotage have been employed by the vich Kirov; this assassin who sent his class enemy. It was necessary to carry emissaries into the Soviet Union for on an active struggle against those the purpose of murdering Stalin, Vo­ forces. Comrade Stalin, together with roshilov, Molotov and others, we the most loyal members of the Com­ must say to these men: You who call munist Party, directed a severe blow yourselves either Socialists or liberals, to those coming from the "Left", the who in your speeches condemn vio­ Trotskyites, Zinovievites, etc., on the lence, especially individual violence, one hand, and against those from the individual terror, have now taken un­ Right, on the other hand. der your protective wing the organ­ The developments in the U.S.S.R. izer and plotter of the foul murders have proven that Comrade Stalin, the directed against the great leaders of Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the people of the U.S.S.R. the working masses of the U.S.S.R. Norman Thomas professes sym­ who followed Comrade Stalin's lead­ pathy and friendship for the Soviet ership, who repudiated the opposition Union. Actions, however, speak louder forces, have reached their goal, basing than words. The defense of Trotsky themselves on the true teachings of is not an expression of friendship for · Marx, Engles and Lenin; using the the U.S.S.R. It is the support of one teachings of the great leaders as a who together with the worst enemy guide to action. Life has proven that of the U.S.S.R., German fascism, the oppositionists, who, in the early plotted to cause destruction in the periods of socialist construction tried to Soviet Union. divert the Party and the people from To Consolidate and Expand the the Leninist road, have now landed Union of the Republics in the swamp of fascist murderers. Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Leninism lives today in the frater­ others who, in the period of difficul­ nal union of the many nationalities ties, capitulated to the class enemy, in the U.S.S.R. who, for the first time, have joined hands with the worst, in the long history of human deve­ most barbaric sections of the class lopment, enjoy freedom in every enemy, the Gestapo. The Trotsky­ respect. The 160 to 170 nationalities Zinoviev-Kamenev group are the ex­ inhabiting the territory of the U.S. crement of the decaying bourgeoisie S.R. who suffered most brutal op­ who temporarily found themselves pression from the rule of the tsar and within the ranks of the working class the landlords-these nationalities are forces. And today, when we see men united in a fraternal union, ·on an like Norman Thomas and others, in equal basis, enjoying full right to self­ the name of democracy, in the name determination. This is the result of LENIN-THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER 79 the correct application of the Leninist the enemy of all enslavement and the faith­ tactics to the solution of the national ful bearer of ideas of internationalism, the question. materialization in reality of mutual aid of the peoples in all fields of economic and so­ Comrade Stalin in his speech at the cial life, and finally the high development of Special Eighth Congress of Soviets dis­ the national culture of the peoples of the cussed at length the present position U.S.S.R., culture that is national in form and of the many nationalities comprising socialist in content-as a result of all these the U.S.S.R. and similar factors, the peoples of the U.S. S.R. have radically changed their characteris­ "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics tics. Their feeling of mutual distrust has dis­ was formed, as is well known, in 1922 at the appeared. The feeling of mutual friendship First Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R. It has developed, and thus fraternal cooperation was formed on the principles of equality and of the peoples has been established in the free will of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. The system of a single union state. Constitution now in force, adopted in 1924, "As a result, we now have a fully formed is the first Comtitution of the U.S.S.R. multi-national socialist state, which has passed "That was a period when the relations all tests and which has a stability which any among the peoples had not yet Leen settled, national state in any part of the world may as they should have been, when the survivals well envy. of mistrust towards the Russians had not yet "Such are the changes that have taken disappeared, when the centrifugal forces still place during the past period in the sphere of continued to operate. Under these conditions relationships among the nationalities of the it was necessary to establish fraternal cooper­ U.S.S.R. Such is the sum total of the changes ation of peoples on the basis of economic, in the sphere of economic and social-political political and military mutual aid, uniting life in the U.S.S.R. which have taken place them in one union, a multi-national state. in the period from 1924 to 1936.""' "The Soviet power could not but see the The banner of Lenin and Leninism difficulties of this. It had before it the un­ successful experiments and unfortunate ex­ is held aloft in the fraternal Union perience of multi-national states in bourgeois of Soviet Socialist Republics. countries. It had before it the abortive expe· rience of old Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless To Strengthen the Red Army it decided to make the experiment of creat· ing a multi-national state, for it knew that a The Red Army today in the U.S. multi-national state which came into being S.R. is a formidable force that sends on the basis of socialism is bound to pass fear into the hearts of the imperialist every possible test. Fourteen years have passed enemies of the Soviet Union. since then, a period sufficiently long to verify But the Red Army is an army for the experiment. What is the result? peace. The Soviet Union has played "The period that has passed undoubtedly shows that the experiment in forming a a most important role in promoting multi-national state created on the basis of peace, in preventing a world slaughter socialism has been entirely successful. This is thus far. an undoubted victory of Lenin's national In the year of 1918, when the war­ policy. ring nations in the imperialist war "How is this victory to be explained? "The very absence of the exploiting classes continued the slaughter of hundreds which are the principal organizers of strife of thousands on the battlefields, there among the nationalities, the absence of ex­ was one voice which called for peace, ploitation, breeding mutual distrust and fan­ for the cessation of war-that was the ning nationalist passions, the fact that the power is held by the working class, which is "Ibid., pp. 9-u. 8o THE COMMUNIST

voice of Lenin, the voice of the Bol­ a fighting organ of the working class sheviks. of the world and today, thirteen years Lenin made every effort to get the after Lenin's death, the Communist warring powers to stop the war. \\Then International represents a world force he failed to get a reply, he signed a embracing practically every country separate peace pact with Germany. It in the world. was this peace pact which led quickly Leninism lives in the struggles car­ to the end of the war. ried on by the Chinese workers and The Soviet Union since then has peasants against Japanese imperial­ carried on a most consistent policy for ism, for a free, independent China. peace. The Soviet Union is the great­ Leninism lives in the struggles of est factor today influencing millions all oppressed nationalities against of people who do not want war. oppression, for national liberation. Through the non-aggression pacts, Leninism lives in the heroic strug­ through the mutual assistance pacts gles of the Spanish people against the signed by the U.S.S.R. with France fascist forces of Spain and against the and Czechoslovakia, through the pro­ fascist intervention of Germany and posal for complete and partial dis­ Italy. armament, by its participation in the Leninism lives in the great People's League of Nations when the instiga­ Front in France which is mobilizing tors of war-Germany, Italy and Japan the forces of the people against reac­ -deserted the League of Nations, the tion, against fascism. U.S.S.R. has become the most im­ The Communist International at portant force which thus far has pre­ its Seventh Congress adopted deci­ vented the outbreak of a world sions which serve as a mobilization of · slaughter. all forces fighting against reaction, fas­ The Red Army in the U.S.S.R cism and war. holds aloft the banner of Lenin and The Communist International car­ Leninism. ries the banner of Lenin and Lenin­ ism into all parts of the world. To Strengthen and Expand the The Communist Party in each coun­ Communist International try carries on the struggle for a free The world Communist Party-the and happy world. Communist International-came as the The Communist Party of the U.S.A. ultimate result of a long struggle car­ is the living embodiment of the theory ried on by Lenin against the oppor­ and practice of Leninism. The Party tunists in the Second International. has demonstrated its correct under­ The Communist International-the standing of the historic tasks facing International Workingmen's Associa­ the toilers of the U.S.A. in the present tion of the twentieth century-is an ex­ period. Following the decisions of the pression of the class struggle of the Seventh Congress of the Communist proletariat in the period of monopoly International, the Communist Party capitalism, in the period of the gen­ of the U.S.A. developed a correct eral crisis of capitalism, in the period Leninist line in dealing with the of wars and revolutions. Lenin created forms of struggle in this period. LENIN-THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER 81

The Ninth Convention of the Com­ Party in the present period. It is the build­ munist Party in June, 1936, reaffirmed ing of the united front of the working class and of the People's Front-the Farmer-Labor the decision of the November, 1935, Party-as a coalition of the working class and Plenum of the Central Committee, its allies. By getting hold of these tasks we which says: shall build the impregnable resistance of the masses against the offensive of reaction and "The building of a Farmer-Labor Party at will create the p!-erequisites for the next the present time is the most burning need and higher stage of struggle-the overthrow of the working class of America, of the toil­ of capitalism and the building of socialism ing farmers and of the middle classes. The through Soviet power. These are the great building of such a party is the only way in historic tasks confronting the Communist which the working people of this country Party and every Communist in the United can seriously undertake to improve their States. With boundless loyalty to our Party intolerable conditions, to shift the burden and to the great principles for which it of the crisis back to the shoulders of the rich, stands, in the spirit of self-sacrifice and cour­ and to ward off the growing menace of capi­ age as taught us by Dimitroff-forward to talist reaction, fascism and war. It is the only struggle!" " way in which the working people can make an effective stand for their own interests in Leninism lives on, enriched by the the national elections of 1936." " experiences of the building of social­ And again in the concluding para­ ism in the U.S.S.R., enriched by the graph of the resolution of the Ninth contributions of the great co-worker Convention: and continuer of the work of Lenin, Joseph Stalin. Leninism marches on to "These constitute the main tasks of the greater victories, towards a new world, " Quoted in Resolutions of the Ninth Con­ a world of communism. vention of the Communist Party, p. 27, Work­ ers Library Publishers, New York. "Ibid., pp. 37-38. THE CRISIS IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY

BY WILLIAM Z. FOSTER

2. THE QUESTION OF CULTIVATING of the Second International. It was THE REvoLUTIONARY FoRcEs more conservative even than the 1920 statement (which was adopted under ·~ N THE foregoing pages we have seen that the Socialist Party, with its the influence of the Russian Revolu­ new turn, has not succeeded in devel­ tion and the great post-war upheavals) oping a policy that would bring it and it contained all the theoretical forward in a leading position among misconceptions and opportunist poli­ the workers and other toiling masses cies that have led to the practical in their everyday struggle against the bankruptcy of the Second Interna­ capitalist exploiters. Thus it still fails tional in the face of the Russian Revo­ in the first essential for the establish­ lution on the one hand and the rise ment of the class struggle policy that of fascism on the other. is fundamentally necessary in order The 1924 Socialist Party statement, to build a strong revolutionary party. a product of the Coolidge "boom" Now let us see what the Socialist Party period, was not a program of prole­ is doing with regard to the second tarian revolution, but of the gradual essential of such a class struggle policy growth of capitalism into socialism. -the building up of a strong body of The document rejects the Marxian Marxist-Leninist understanding in analysis of the capitalist state as the and around the Party. Here, again, as instrument of the bourgeoisie and the we shall see, our question will receive revolutionary necessity for setting up a negative answer: the Socialist Party the dictatorship of the proletariat­ is also not succeeding in this most instead it is based upon the opportu­ basic need. nist theory that the present state is a democratic people's state by means of A. Reformist Theoretical Weakness which socialism can be built. The Prior to 1934, the authoritative pro­ 1924 program also holds forth not a nouncement of the Socialist Party Marxian perspective of class struggle analysis and policy was the statement culminating in the overthrow of capi­ of principles adopted in the Party con­ talism and the "expropriation of the vention of 1924. This was a typical expropriators" without compensation, social reformist document of the but the Bernstein conception of class period; it might well have been the collaboration, the conquest of the basic program of any of the parties state by peaceful means and the pur­ chase of the major industries from the Concluded from last month's issue of The Communist. capitalist owners. St THE CRISIS IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY

The Detroit, 1934, statement of forth in its statements of its basic principles, written as I have pointed principles, varying them widely ac­ out under the pressure of the great cording to the temporary moods of the American strike wave of the early . masses. The Party was at the time no Roosevelt years and in face of the longer feeling the heavy mass pressure bankruptcy of the German Socialist that it had experienced in 1934, so Party before Hitler's attacks, broke the 1936 Socialist Party convention, as sharply with the extreme Right re­ always, dominated by lawyers, preach­ formist Socialist Party conception of ers, doctors and other middle class 1924. The new program was still full intellectuals, who were alarmed at of confusion and far from being revo­ their own radicalism of 1934, charac­ lutionary, but it was nevertheless a big teristically decided to remove some of advance over the previous document. the "objectionable" features of the The 1934 program rejected the re­ 1934 program. They also hoped that formist theory of the capitalist this "concession" would placate the "people's state", began to speak of the enraged "Old Guard" Right wing of "bogus democracy of capitalism", and the Party led by Louis Waldman, Abe made a confused approach to the ques­ Cahan, James Oneal, then on tht tion of the dictatorship of the prole­ verge of a split. tariat by vague theorizing about a The Detroit convention had before future "workers' democracy". The pro­ it a proposed program submitted by gram also cast grave doubts on the the Left wing at the Socialist Call In­ efficacy of purely democratic and legal stitute, a document which, despite its methods of struggle and declared that many elementary theoretical errors, it was prepared if necessary to "carry would have brought the Socialist Party the revolutionary struggle into the substantially nearer to a correct Lenin­ camp of the enemy". It also took a ist position. • But the convention re­ more militant stand against war, pro­ jected this document and, instead of nouncing itself in favor of "massed continuing the Party's progress Left­ war resistance", and it made a more ward, pushed it off again to the Right. correct estimate of the first socialist The 1936 convention toned down the state, the U.S.S.R. This relatively Left 1934 declaration of principles oy program was adopted by the Detroit modifying several key paragraphs in convention only after a fierce resis­ a manner considerably minimizing the tance by the "Old Guard" leadership, necessity for a program of militant who denounced it as Communistic. class struggle and placing more reli­ The Detroit, 1934, program repre­ ance upon bourgeois democracy. sented progress in the direction of a rev­ These retreats to the Right Norman olutionary basis for the Socialist Party's Thomas calls an "improvemenf'. • • work. But the Cleveland, 1936, Social­ In considering the status of the So- ist Party convention took some steps • For a detailed analysis of this document backward by substantially watering and an estimate of the general theoretical down the Detroit document. Through­ position of the Socialist Party, see Alex Bittel­ man's pamphlet Going Left, Workers Library out its history the Socialist Party has Publishers, New York. opportunistically swayed back and .,.. After the New Deal-What? p. 221. THE COMMUNIST

cialist Party with regard to revolu­ tionary theory attention must be Thomas' latest book, After the New focused upon its leader, Norman Deal-What?, is only a restatement of Thomas. In reality, so great is his the traditional reformist line of the influence that the Party is guided far Socialist Party, with the addition of more by what he says than by its his new sectarian tendencies. It con­ formal declaration of principles. And tradicts even the relatively mild "Left" Thomas' whole theoretical line makes line of the 1934 Party statement of against a revolutionary program; it principles. Thomas shows in it that wo:ks directly counter to the develop­ the great lessons of the Russian Revo­ ment of a body of Marxian revolu­ lution, the rise of fascism and the tionat-y understanding in and around bankruptcy of the opportunist line of the Socialist Party; it cultivates re­ the Second International, are quite lost formism and ·sectarianism and it upon him in the matter of working creates favorable conditions for the out a Socialist policy in the United growth of Trotskyism. States. The viewpoint of Norman Thomas In Thomas' latest book we find a is a melange of "Left" liberalism and repetition of the old social reformist Bernstein revisionism, heavily tinc­ avoidance of mass class struggle and tured with Trotskyism, and this incon­ the customary opportunist conception gruous mixture he calls "Socialism". of the gradual growth of capitalism Thomas, the present "Left" leader of into socialism. He even repeats the the Socialist Party, is even less a Marx­ antique and discredited reformist plan ist than was the former Right oppor­ of buying the industries from the capi­ tunist Old Guard party head, Hillquit. talists, as he proposes "to offer some Not only is the basic theoretical work compensation to the expropriated owners".* Thomas retains a child­ of the great Marxists, Lenin and Stalin, rejected completely by like faith in the efficacy of capitalist Thomas, but he also blithely chal­ democracy as the means of accom­ plishing socialism. He completely dis­ lenges offhand even the most funda­ regards the lessons of fascism in mental principles of Marx and Engels. Europe, which prove conclusively Thus, for example, in a few lines and what Marx and Lenin said many years with a wave of the hand, he casually ago, that the capitalists, including the brushes aside the Marxian conceptions militant American brand, will never of historical materialism and of the allow themselves to be ousted through class struggle and also the Marxian the workers and their allies merely theories of value. obtaining parliamentary majorities, " ... these things do not prove that all this but will resort to arms to defend their old world needs is to accept Marxism with rulership. Thomas pins his hopes in its materialist conception of history, class conflict and theory of value." the American capitalist democracy "Not only is the concept of economic deter­ (with a bit of patching up here and mination inadequate to the weight Marxists there). He is thus an ardent advocate often put upon it but so is the more vehe­ of American exceptionalism. Just how mently held dogma of the class struggle.""

"America's Way Out, pp. 133 and 138. " After the New Deal-What? p. 163. THE CRISIS IN THE SOCIALIST pARTY little a revolutionist Thomas is, de­ force of the working class is its hostil­ spite all his pother about socialism, ity towards the united front. In thi~• was shown by the revealing statement anti-united front attitude there an: he made in June, 1936, to The Xrw elements of the new Socialist Partv York Times: sectarianism, but the main constil'­ ucnts of it are remnants of the tradi­ "In this country we want no dictatorship, tional war of the opportunistic we want no revolution. There are ample con­ stitutional ways of bringing about the change Socialist Party leadership against the [to socialisrn-\V'.Z.F.] in a peaceful and legal Left wing. tnanner." The question of unity is now one of most burning necessity to the work­ From all the foregoing it is clear ing class in view of the growing offen­ that the Socialist Party, as a party, is sive of the fascist reaction. At its not basing itself upon revolutionary recent Seventh \¥oriel Congress in theory; and as Lenin says, without Moscow the Communist International revolutionary theory there can he no understood this clearly, saying: "At revolutionary movement. \\'ith its the present historical stage it is the present babel of conflicting group main and immediate task of the in­ reformist theories-Old Guardism, ternational labor movement to estab­ militantism, Lovestoneism, and coun­ lish the united front of the working ter-revolutionary Trotskyism, the So­ class." cialist Party does not develop a The ...Communist Parties all over program of militant daily mass strug­ the world are working actively to de­ gle nor can it build up the indispensa­ velop such unity of labor's forces. ble core of revolutionary Marxian And that they are not strivino· in vain fighters. What progress it is making • 0 Is demonstrated by the great united towards these essential goals comes front movements in France, Spain, from the pressure of the incipient Austria, Italy, etc. In the first line, all Leninist-Stalinist minority in the So­ these movements are based upon cialist Party. Especially does Thomas' formal united front agreements be­ mish-mash of opportunist theorizing tween the Socialist and Communist stand in the way of the ideological Parties. advance of the Socialist Party. To be­ come a revolutionary party the Social­ The need for unity within the ranks ist Party would have to overcome its of labor is also acute in the United shallow opportunist theories and base States, and the Communist Party is its policies firmly upon the study and the leading fighter for the united propagation of the work of the great front. As part of its campaign for an revolutionary leaders of the working eventual broad united People's Front class-Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. of labor and its allies in the .Farmer­ Labor Party it attaches great impor· B. Hostility ap;ainst the United Fmnt tance to a general united front with the Socialist Party, based upon a pro­ A fundamental aspect of the failure gram of struggle for immediate de­ of the new leadership of the Socialist mands, but also looking forward to Party to cultivate the revolutionary the amalgamation of the two parties 86 THE COMMUNIST

into one organization on the basis of a powerful factor for progress in the a revolutionary fight for socialism. labor movement. Notwithstanding that the united But Norman Thomas, with eyes front question played a big role in the Right, wants little or none of that. recent defeat of the "Old Guard" In his latest book he says: leadership the present Socialist Party leaders, however, resist the striving of "Our fundamental task is not to unite So­ the Communist Party for a general cialists, Communists and what we call pro­ gressives, already numerous enough to stop united front. Thus they rejected the fascism, in one anti -fascist bloc. All of us Communist Party proposal for a joint together are, alas, too few."" Socialist-Communist Party ticket in the 1936 national elections. Harking \Vith such characteristic confusion­ back to the traditional Socialist Party ist arguments does Thomas justify his opportunist poli~y of war against the opportunist rejection of the united Left and conciliation towards the front and place obstacles in the way Right, they work on the theory that of labor's unity. In one breath he joint action with the Communists is a admits that the prospective united hindrance rather than an advantage. front forces are "already numerous They only go as far in the direction enough to stop fascism" and then, in of the united front as they are pressed the very next breath, he bemoans that by their proletarian rank and file "All of us together are, alas, too few". among whom the Communist Partv Negative results of this Socialist united front policy is very popula;. Party anti-unity line are to be seen in The official Socialist Party stand i.' various united front movements, in­ against a general united front with the cluding the Farmer-Labor Party, the Communist Party, but it does occa­ National Negro Congress, the Na­ sionally accept united front actions tional Youth Congress, and the Amer­ on individual issues. ican League Against War and Fascism. On such questions as the Socialist In these movements the Socialist Party Party and Communist Party have de­ policy (save in the case of individual veloped united front actions, includ­ Socialists who disregard their Party's ing the amalgamation of the two un­ line) boils down pretty much to one employed organizations into the of mere fault-finding, sectarian pro­ vVorkers Alliance, the defense of the posals and even actual obstruction. l\iooney, Scottsboro and Herndon The anti-united front tendencies in cases, joint Socialist Party-Communist the Socialist Party are being strength­ Party action in various unions, local ened by the growing influence of the mass demonstrations, etc., have been counter-revolutionary Trotskyites. almost uniformly highly successful. Thomas, who is so conservative on The workers joyfully supported the the united front question in the unity in action of the two organiza­ United States, suddenly becomes tions, and the whole experience ·to super-radical on the united front inter­ date has gone to show that broad nationally, which is only another way united front activities by the two of opposing this policy. A la Trotsky, parties on a sound program could be "After the New Deal-What? p. 214. THE CRISIS IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY he is much alarmed that the Popular policy, and it is in line with that of Front movements in France and Spain the most reformist sections of the are not revolutionary enough and he Second International. It demonstrates criticizes them for Right opportunism. that the Socialist Party has not yet Thus, characteristically, at a big New learned how to develop the revolution­ York united front demonstration the ary forc,!'!s, its new leadership not Socialist Party, in the name of vague having vanquished the reformist hang­ proposals for a workers' Spain, not overs from the past in this fundamen­ only refused specifically to endorse tal respect. The anti-united front the Spanish People's Front govern­ tendencies in the Socialist Party are ment, which was fighting guns in hand a real barrier to its becoming a strong against fascism, but even tried to force mass party and a leading fighting the Communist Party to agree not to force. carry slogans or make speeches bearing such endorsements. But Thomas' nar­ C. Unfriendly Attitude Towards row sectarian conception of the the Soviet Union People's Front, if followed in Europe, could only have the effect of surren­ In a previous chapter I have shown dering to the fascists the farmers and that one of the most fatal mistakes in city middle class elements now in the the whole history of the Socialist Popular Front, for which decisive gift Party, one that undermined the Party the fascists would rejoice. The Popu­ from within and alienated the best lar Front movement, despite its many revolutionary elements from without, weaknesses as yet in practice, is sound was its years-long attitude of hostility in principle. It is the correct revolu­ towards the U.S.S.R. The bitter strug­ tionary strategy in the given situation. gle that the Socialist Party "Old It is the path by which the anti-fascist Guard" petty-bourgeois leaders so long masses can develop basically the great­ led against the first socialist country est possible struggle here and now, was a basic expression of their general and it is also the strategical means by war against the Left wing in their which the proletariat can gather own Party and against every other around itself the maximum forces for manifestation of revplutionary spirit the eventual revolutionary overthrow and program. of the capitalist system. It is giving The Socialist Party of today, de­ new revolutionary hope, organization spite its new turn, has not freed itself and fighting spirit to the masses de­ from this fundamental error. Such moralized by the ideological bank­ antagonism to the U.S.S.R. is, in final ruptcy of the Second International. analysis, antagonism to proletarian The Socialist Party's openly oppor­ revolution in general. Although its tunist resistance to the united front rank-and-file membership are distinct­ policy in the United States and its ly friendly to the Soviet Union, there sectarian, but no less opportunist, at­ still remains much of the old reform­ tempt to narrow down the People's ist anti-Sovietism in the official policy Front in Europe is a close relation of of the Socialist Party. The Socialist the "Old Guard's" anti-united front Call, for example, has long been a 88 THE COMMUNIST happy hunting ground for renegades first hand. \

*After the New Dcai-Jl'liat? p. 211. upon the workers of other countries THE CRISIS IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY 89 for active assistance, he is threatening Firstly, we have seen in Chapter I to abandon the Soviet government al­ that the basic reason why the Socialist together in case of war. Party has not succeeded historically The revolutionary stature of a party in building itself into a strong mass can be measured by its attitude revolutionary party is because it has towards the U.S.S.R. This is because followed a policy of reformism in­ the Soviet government is the revolu­ stead of one of Marxian class struggle. tion in life, the crystallization in flesh vVe have also seen that this opportu­ and blood of revolutionary theory and nist line originated with the petty­ practice. The anti-Soviet tendencies in bourgeois intellectuals who dominated the leadership of the Socialist Party the Socialist Party and systematically are expressions of the reformism with tried to make of it some kind of a which the Party is afflicted. They are semi-demi-progressive party. Then in diluted ''Old Guardism", remnants Chapters II and III, we have seen con­ of the traditional opportunist war cretely how the Socialist Party, in the against the Left wing, and they are thirty-odd years prior to the develop­ dangerously akin to Hearst's. Soviet­ ment of its new Left turn in 1934, phobia. They sum up as part of the had continuously violated both major Socialist Party's general failure to cul­ essentials of the necessary class strug­ tivate and organize the revolutionary gle policy: (a) by its failure to come forces. forward militantly as the leader of the It is high time that the Socialist toiling masses in their daily economic Party put an end to these anti-re\·olu­ and political struggles, and, (b) by tionary trends. They have done incal­ its failure to build up a solid body oJ culable harm to the Socialist Party Marxian understanding in the Social­ ever since the November, 1917, revolu­ ist Party and among its mass follow­ tion and they still continue to work in£. And we have also seen how, step their evil effects. The Socialist Party by step, this persistent reformist policy can never be on a sound mass basis prevented the Socialist Party from until its leaders stop sniping at the growing and gaining broad mass in­ U.S.S.R.; it can never become a revo­ fluence and how it finally led to sev­ lutionary party until it gives, as a eral splits and to the deep decay which Party, to the Soviet government and the Party suffered for ten years prior its struggle for peace that hearty sup­ to 1934· port which springs spontaneously in Now, in Chapter IV, we have just all revolutionary parties and which checked over the present general line wells up naturally in the heart of and condition of the Socialist Party to every revolutionary worker. learn whether, since its 1934 turn Leftwards, the Party has overcome the The Perspective of the Socialist Party reformist errors of its past and has laid the basis for a sound Marxian Now let us see to what general con­ policy of class struggle. And the con­ clusions our analysis of the history clusion we are compelled to arrive at and present situation of the Socialist is a negative one. The old disease of Party has led us. opportunism still afflicts the Socialist go THE COMMUNIST

Party, although it has taken on some Party leadership hinders the growth new sectarian forms. of the class conscious body of revolu­ To begin with, the present day So­ tionary fighters without whom the cialist Party has not succeeded in pro­ Socialist Party can never succeed. letarianizing its leadership, although The general consequence of this it has freed itself of many opportunist failure of the new Socialist Party lead­ doctors, lawyers, professors, etc., in the ership to correct the traditional and "Old Guard" split. As since its begin­ disastrous reformist line of the Party ning, the Socialist Party leadership re­ has been, instead of liquidating the mains in the hands of the petty­ Party crisis, to intensify it, especially bourgeois intellectuals. And the gen­ during the past year. The Socialist eral tendency of these officials goes to Party is very sick from opportunism thwart the revolutionary purposes of and Thomas' new "cure" is as bad as the proletarians, in the Party and to the old disease: indeed it is only the keep the Party on a reformist course, chronic ailment of reformism mani­ masked· by revolutionary phrasemak­ festing itself through new symptoms. ing and Trotskyist counter-revolution­ The Socialist Party crisis spreads, ary maneuverings. deepens and becomes more threaten­ We have also seen in the present ing. The Party membership is rapidly chapter how the present Socialist declining, now being probably not Party leadership still violates the two more than half of the 19,121 that it major essentials of the indispensable was last year. The "Old Guard" split Marxian class struggle policy. Firstly, has wrought havoc with the Party or­ by its perpetuation of old reformist ganization in Ohio, Indiana, Califor­ hang-overs and the introduction of the nia, "\IVashington, Oregon, New York, new sectarian opportunism, illustrated Pennsylvania, Connecticut, etc., and through its grossly wrong attitude on the Party is threatening to collapse in the question of the relation of the many other localities. The effects of fight for immediate demands to the the split are made worse by Thomas' fight for socialism, its defeatist atti­ silly sectarian policies and the anti­ tude in the struggle against fascism revolutionary work of the Trotskyist and war, its anti-Labor Party policy, elements, all of which drive away etc., this leadership prevents the So­ many serious and honest workers. The cialist Party from coming forward in a Socialist Party is torn with factional­ leading role in the daily mass struggles ism, with half a dozen groups strug­ of the workers and thus condemns the gling for leadership; the Party is deep­ Party to isolation and impotence; and, ly confused theoretically; discipline is secondly, by its gross neglect, re­ practically non-existent; pessimism is visionism, and antagonism towards the rampant, and there is a general falling theoretical works of Marx, Engels, away of members who are disgruntled Lenin and Stalin, by its hostility to the and disgusted. Naturally also, the mass united front policy, by its consolida­ inHuence of the Socialist Party has tion with the discredited Trotskyite rapidly waned; its 1936 election vote disrupters, and by its unfriendliness will be greatly reduced and, actually, towards the Soviet Union, the Socialist in the trade unions, even those led by THE CRISIS IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY

Socialists for many years, it has been of the Detroit, 1934, declaration of almost wiped out.* In short, the So­ principles, etc., and it is this force cialist Party is now, as the fruit of its which, in opposition to the present long-continued opportunist policies, trend of the Socialist Party leadership, in a most serious crisis. provides the general basis for the de­ Now as to the future: Is the Socialist feat of sectarian reformism and Trot­ Party on the way to collapse, or has it skyism in the Socialist Party. within it the possibility of a renais­ Dovetailing with this constructive sance and growth into a strong party force are the effects, on the one hand, of real value in developing the fight· of the open bankruptcy of the re­ ing force of the proletariat and its formist, class collaboration policy of allies? To this query the only answer the whole Second International in the that can correctly be given at present face of rising fascism and, on the is that both positive and negative fac· other hand, of the great successes, do­ tors are at work in shaping the Social· mestic and foreign, of the Socialist ist Party and that the fate of the Partv Soviet Union, the growth of the Popu­ depends upon which of these forces lar Front movements in Spain, France, becomes definitely dominant. and the general united front policy of the Communist International-all Among the positive factors-that is, of which developments ·tend to press those making for a strong and revolu­ the Socialist Party in the direction of tionary Socialist Party-the most basic a policy of Marxian class struggle. rme is the constant pressure upon the Another major positive force mak­ Socialist Party from the radicalization ing for a fighting Socialist Party is the of the masses of workers. Faced by the revolutionary example and stimula­ surging capitalist reaction which in­ tion of the Communist Party. The creasingly tends in the direction of C.P.U.S.A., manifestly has every rea­ fascism, these masses, harassed by un­ son to want the Socialist Party to de­ employment, low wages, abridged civil velop in a revolutionary sense, for this rights, etc., are compelled to fight. means greatly to increase the power of Hence, they press militantly upon the both parties and to di;aw them closer trade unions, the growing Farmer­ together. Therefore, the Communist Labor Party, and all other labor organ­ Party cooperates with the Socialist izations, in order to utilize these bodies Party wherever possible, meanwhile as fighting weapons in their growing making and receiving criticism in a struggle against the capitalist exploit· friendly spirit. The Communist Party ers. It was this mass pressure, in first does what it can to strengthen the line, that brought about the Leftward Leninist elements within the Socialist trend in the Socialist Party, with its Party; it seizes upon every practical defeat of the "Old Guard", adoption occasion to initiate joint united front "A typical example; In the I.L.G.W.U. campaigns of the two parties and Local 22, New York, with 3o,ooo members, other labor groups; its whole policy a traditionally Socialist Party controlled looks forward to the eventual amalga­ union, the Socialist Party anti-Labor Par~y policy was rejected by a vote in the ratio mation of the Communist Party and of 15 to 1. So'cialist Party into one party upon 92 THE COMMUNIST the basis of a Leninist revolutionary every traditional weakness of the Party program. but are introducing a whole series of But there are also at work powerful new difficulties for it. negative forces that check these con­ Of these positive and negative structive elements and tend to push forces, of which I have cited only those the Socialist Party deeper into the of a major character, it must be ad­ quicksand of opportunism. Among mitted that the negative ones are now these negative forces is the important in the ascendant. Corroding and de­ fact that the Socialist Party has not structive, they are rapidly isolating succeeded in proletarianizing its lead­ the Socialist Party from the masses ership. At the Party's head, as of yore, and disintegrating its organization. It stands a group of opportunist petty­ is certain that with its present leader­ bourgeois intellectuals. These ele­ ship and policies the Socialist Par­ ments act as a real barrier to the ty is on the way to impotence. translation of the revolutionary moods Unless both are changed, unless the of the Socialist Party's proletarian forces that produced the 1934 Left members into terms of a Marxist­ turn and overthrew the "Old Guard" Leninist policy for the Party. can go forward to their necessary goal Next there is the negative force of by giving the Socialist Party a revolu­ the traditional reformist line of the tionary leadership and policy, the So­ Socialist Party. The destructive oppor­ cialist Party's days as an important tunist policies which, as we have seen factor in the labor movement are over. in detail, have through the course of In their time both the Socialist Labor the years brought the Socialist Party Party and the Industrial Workers of to the brink of ruin, still remains the \Vorld were militant organizations basically in effect. Their new sectarian that played a progressive role in the trimmings by no means mitigate their developing revolutionary movement. disastrous consequences upon the But they failed to learn the lessons of Party. the class struggle of their period and And then there is that new malig­ did not adapt themselves to the chang­ nant disease of the Socialist Party, the ing fighting needs of the workers. So plague of Trotskyism. The admission they became isolatea from the advanc­ of the counter-revolutionary Trotsky­ ing masses and fell into decline and ites was an injection of deadly poison sectarian mummification. Is the Social­ into the life tissues of the Socialist ist Party doomed to travel the same Party. They are not only worsening fatal path? BOOK REVIEWS

WORLD POLITICS, rgr8-r9;6. By R- Palme events, the American press is forced to pay Dutt- International Publishers, New York, more attention to world politics. Though it $2.00. deliberately portrays world political events as segregated occurrences that serve, editorially, MERICA:\ workers are beginning to learn to contrast America's splendid and God-given A that an understanding of world politics isolation and to compare our happy aloof­ can no longer be reserved to the dilettante ness from Hitler's bellowed threats, Musso­ dabbling in "foreign affairs" by old ladies' lini's feverish war moves in the Mediterra­ societies interested in the diversion of the nean, or Japan's ceaseles~ preparation for strange and bizarre. It has become an im­ further penetration into China or for inva­ perative necessity for class conscious workers sion of the Soviet Union. beginning to know that not only is world American readers searching for light on the peace indivisible but that the front line subject oweR. Palme Dutt, author of World trenches of Spain's civil war are an integral Politics, rgr8-rg;6, an enthusiastic vote of part of their own fight here against reaction. thanks. He has saved them many a headache, Especially in the United States, because of many a long, fruitless wandering through the strongly inculcated false isolationist beliefs complicated maze of present-day world poli­ drummed into the heads of the American tics, which, if undeniably becoming more people by the Hearsts as well as by the more important, at the same time become more respectable press, world politics has hereto­ intricate and involved. fore been regarded as a scholastic subject for Comrade Dutt, editor of the influential book-writing professors of international law. British Labour Monthly, author of deserved With the knife of history sharply slicing international reputation, and leading Eng­ up the world more or less into two main lish Marxist-Leninist theoretician and polit­ jagged parts, the United States could not es­ ical writer, has presented us with his best cape unscatched, at least in its outlook on book, the result of the best of his long the towering questions of war and fascism. scholarly work as a student, observer, and That the first great act of the second Roose­ commentator of world politics. velt administration, in point of departure World Politics is a lucid Marxist-Leninist from die elections, is an international event, examination of the fundamental laws and the Inter-American Peace Conference, at processes of world political history from the Buenos Aires, is in keeping with the gravity end of the last World War to the present, of the times. the eve of a threatening new world slaughter. Still, the general view here of what was Some who have read the book describe it heretofore more academically known as "for­ as a continuation of Lenin's Imperialism to eign affairs", but which R. Palme Dutt more date. While Comrade Dutt contributes greatly accurately terms world politics, is that of a to an understanding of present-day imperial­ series of isolated, and most often sensational, ism, the book concerns itself mainly with the events originating outside of the United political developments rather than with a States and concerning exclusively two or more detailed examination of the economic sub­ foreign countries. structure of imperialism and fascism. However, when what happens in Germany, After outlining the "New World Situation" Italy and Japan affects the future of the eighteen years after the conclusion of the American people it no longer becomes "for­ World War, the author, in his second chap­ eign" politics. ter, states: By pressure of the importance of the "The problem of world politics is the 93 94 THE COMMUNIST problem of collective world organization," bent on plunging the world into a new adding, at the same time, that the "ever­ slaughter. sharpening and ceaselessly renewed conflict Not only is the Soviet Union's entry into for the redivision of the world, by economic weapons, oy state legislative weapons, by the League a wedge against the fascists, but diplomatic weapons, and finally by armed the U.S.S.R. is able to utilize the contradic­ warfare, which is in essence the reflection of tions between the small nations and the big the conflict of the enlarged world productive powers, and between the imperialist rivals, forces against the existing social and political forms, is the crux of world politics." in the interest of world peace. For the best published treatment of such Thus the question is stated in its dialecti­ questions as "The League of Nations", "World cal relationship: the growing conditions and striving for world organization occur precise­ Pacts and Regional Pacts", and the issue that ly at the time when imperialism with its will come more and more into the fore, "Col­ fascist spearhead drives forward in the sharp­ lective Security", see Comrade Dutt's book. est manner for redivision, war and destruc­ It would be difficult to convey to the read­ tion. The chapters on "The Balance Sheet of er the richness of this book which in its 355 Two Decades" and, "The Rising Antagonisms pages does not miss a single important event of Capitalist World Economy" are an exam­ in the replete years of tgt8-1g36. How Dutt ination of the post-war efforts of capitalism, manages to crowd in his choice and numer­ struck down by the general crisis of impe­ ous quotations from his vast fund of reading rialism, to rebuild itself by a hopeless tangle is amazing. of conflicting measures. In our daily task as world politics colum­ Really to understand most of the questions nist for the Daily Worker, Dutt's book has raised by Hitler and Mussolini they must be become invaluable for our practical work. traced back to their origin in the last World Most useful for understanding the imme­ War and in the peace treaties which followed diate situation-the book was completed be­ it. Dutt does the task as no bourgeois his­ fore the outbreak of the Spanish civil war­ torian dared or could. is the chapter on "Main Areas of Conflict". Entertaining and instructive reading is the Besides its other merits of blue-printing the genesis of the League of Nations as outlined world's war-danger spots, it also contains the in "Attempts at World Organization". Though best outline of Hitler's Mein Kampf (in a we are taken back to the nebulous dreams of few pages) in the English language. ancient philosophers who vaguely visioned Dutt devotes his concluding chapters to the some universal society, Dutt states: Soviet Union in world politics, the struggle for peace, and the future of world organiza­ "The conception of world unity and of tion. ultimate world political unification arose for We have one criticism to make. The book the first time from the conditions of capital­ ism; but it is in profound contradiction with seriously lacks portrayal of the re\olutionary the whole basis of capitalist organization, character of the present-day struggle for property relations, economic-political concen­ peace. The significance of this does not lie tration of power and state forms." just in the striving to avert war, per se, but The contradictory development of the in advancing most rapidly the revolutionary League of Nations is traced here more com­ interests of the proletariat and all humanity. pletely and more originally than anywhere This phase of the question is not the central else to our knowledge. Dutt tells how it came feature in Palme Dutt's otherwise able de­ to pass that through the sharpening of the scription of the struggle for peace against the contradictions of imperialism, the prepara­ fascist warmongers. tions for a new imperialist slaughter, the War will be nearest when the inner crisis League, first fashioned as a weapon against of fascism is greatest. By massing all forces the October Revolution in Russia, had devel­ desiring peace the fascists will find it diffi­ oped to a condition where the Soviet Union cult, and if sufficient resistance is aroused, was able to enter and use the League as an impossible to go to war. Whatever degree of obstacle to impede the forward rush of the success is achieved in this direction will serve fascist and other warmongering powers most to raise the tension within the fascist coun- BOOK REVIEW 9.? tries. If, nevertheless, the fascists should go He enumerates the reasons for our peace to war, the. preliminary struggle for peace struggle as follows: First, because a new will have created the forces to shorten the world war would be an incalculable disaster war and end it quickly with revolutionary for humanity; second, because every delay in consequences. the outbreak of world war increases the rela­ For those reasons Comrade Dimitroff has tive strength of the socialist forces through­ said that the struggle for peace is "a struggle out the world; and, finally, because the strug­ for the victory of socialism throughout the gle for peace directly assists to mobilize the world". forces and prepare the ground for the fur­ Dutt, for example, contents himself with ther struggle against imperialism. The posi­ saying: "The fight for peace is today the cen­ tive, revolutionary aspect is missing. ter of the fight against the main offensive of 'Ve are sure that readers of The Commu­ the dominant, most aggressive forces of fin­ nist, if they browse once through Comrade ance capital", that is to say, a sort of defen­ Dutt's latest work, will make this volume, as sive fight. we have, their No. 1 book on world politics. HARRY GANNES. CONTINUE YOUR STUDY OF MARXISM - LENINISM In Hundreds of Books, Pamphlets, Magazines for Sale at These Bookstores and Literature Distribution Centers

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