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The 3Rd Inte-Rnationai After Lenin by LEON TROTSKY

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The 3Rd Inte-Rnationai After Lenin by LEON TROTSKY THE NEW INTERNATIONA.L (With which is merged Labor Action) A B I - M 0 NTH L YO R G A N 0 F REV 0 L UTI 0 N A R Y MARXISM OFFICIAL THEORETICAL ORGAN OF THE WORKERS PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES Published bi-monthly by the New International Publhhing Company, Room 1010, 100 Fifth Ave., New York" N.Y. Subscription rates: $1.50 per year; $1.00 for seven months. Canada and Abroad: $1.75 per year. Entered as Second Class matter January 26, 1935, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. VOLUME III Editors: NO.3 (Whole No. 15) MAX SHACHTMAN JUNE 1936 JOHN IWEST TABLE OF CONTENTS In Opposite Directions-The Cleveland Convention of the Kathleen Ni Houlihan's Newest Savior-by Maurice Socialists-by M. S ............................... 65 Ahearn ........................................ 89 The End of Locarno-by HI alter Held. .. 67 On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo-by L. D. Trotsky 92 Wages and Prices in the Soviet Union-by Erich WoUen- berg ............................................ 70 BOOKS: Living Marx'ism-by G. N.......................... 93 Engels' Letters to Kautsky-by Leon Trotsky.......... 73 Hearst-by Karandash .............................. 94 Criminology and Society-by Bernard K. Wolfe........ 78 Genetics-by A. B.................................. 95 The'Intellectuals and the Crisis-II-by George Novack 83 Rosmer's Book-by L. Trotsky ...................... 96 A Page of American Imperialism-by I. G. Wright ..... 86 Inside Front Cover: Our Voices Must Be Heard Inside Back Cover: The Press OUR VOICES MUST BE HEARD! Ii THE revelatIOns of comrade Anton Cil- and the concentration camps of Stalin treacherous device of inviting them to iga, former leader of the Communist are packed to bursting with these sterl- Moscow for "discussions." Shortly after Party of Yugoslavia who compelled· the ing revolutionists, most of them 9f the they' have crossed the frontiers of the Soviet authorities to release him from present gen~ration, men and women who, Soviet Union, the G.P.U., which has be­ imprisonment and 'allow his departure despite the fierce conditions of repression, come nothing more than a factionai po­ from the Union, give a truly 15hocking pic- refuse to. accept as revolutionary d?ctrine lice instrument in the hands of the bu­ ture of the conditions of revolutionary the reactIonary theories and practises of reaucracy, is set into motion with the re­ political prisoners under the present Stalin . the ruling clique. In addition to the new suIt that the rebels disappear into one of re.gime. They are supplemented by tbe generation of Bolsheviks whose number the Stalinist dungeons or concentration articles written on the same subject by already greatly surpasse15 the number of camps. Hungarian revolutionary oppo-' comrade A. Tarov, the Russian Bolshe- political prisoners of all the labor parties nents of ,Bela Kun, Bulgarian opponents vik-Leninist who escaped from Soviet under Czarism, there are hundreds of old of Dimitroff, Yugoslav opponents of Gor­ imprisonment, and by additional authen- Bolsheviks of Lenin's generation who kic, Polish opponents of the Stalinist ap­ tic information that has reached us from have fallen into. the displeasure of the pointee in the Polish Communist Party other sources in the Soviet Union. Stalinist court and made to suffer the un- -have either received this treatment, or, The picture of savage and treacherou~ speakable consequences. In most c:ases, as during the period of the Kirov assas­ persecution which the Bonapartist clique they are treated worse than common sination, have simply been sh0t on of Stalin carries on against impeccable criminals. Their quarters are unfit for framed-up charges. proletarian revolutionists, far exceeds habitation; their food allowances are If the lives of thousands of revolution­ anything that we have hitherto known the scant and wretc:1e": correspondenc~ and ary militants are to be saved, if the best situation I to be. Literally thousands and reading matter are usually forbidden heritage of Bolshevism in the Soviet tens of thousands of members of the So- them. The regime makes them pay for Union is to be preserved from physical viet Communist Party and youth organ- their incorruptible revolutionary stead- annihilation, the voices of the class con­ ization are continually expelled for ~'Trot- fastness and devotion by the ~ost ~indic- scious workers of every country must be skyism" or even for being suspected of tive persecution and torm~nt .lmagllla~le. raised in a protest so loud and vigorous holding ~iews that interfere .,,:ith the bu- More than one BolsheVik of Lenm's that it will penetrate the walls of the reaucrats work of t~ndermllllll&, all the school has already been tortured and Kremlin bureaucracy and compel it to conque.sts of the RUSSian revolutlOn. Ex- hounded to death because. he refused to relinquish the victims of its political ven­ p~lsion .from t~e Soviet party under such a~knowledge that all t~e vlrtue~ of man- geance. Protest is not ineffective, as. can Circumstances IS a matter of the gravest kmd are concentrated m the pnson of J. b . f th f V' tor Ser'ge . V S l' Th I d' . S I' . t e seen rom e case 0 lC consequence, for III most cases It means . ta lll. e atest to Ie m .... ta Ims h fi 11 I d d d' I that the :victim of Stalinist vengeance is prison is Solntzev. w 0 was na. y. re ease an gru gm~ y deprived or his means of life. In a vast Russian Bolsheviks are not the only gra!lted permiSSIon to lea.ve th~ Soviet number of lristances, the police regime victims. Ciliga reports numerous ca~es of Umon .for a. countrr of .hlS Ch?lce. Let does not stop at mere expulsion but sen- revolutionary workers and leaders III the our. vo~ces b.e heard. It IS a cnme to r~­ tences the heretic to imprisonment or exile capitalist countries whose freedom is i~k- mam '15~len~ m the face of the systemmatIc to one of its concentration camps. some to the bureaucracy of the Comm- extermmation of the flower of revolu- The prisons, the remote places of exile tern and who are dispos~d of by the tionary Marxism. THE NEW INTERNATIONAL A B I - M 0 NTH L Y 0 ~ G A N a F ~ E v'a L U, T ION A ~ Y MAR X ISM VOLUME III JUNE 1936 NUMBER 3 (Whole No. 15) In Opposite Directions The Cleveland Convention of the Socialists and the Swing to the Right of the Stalinists DEVELOPMENTS of the greatest importance are taking sembled and Clarified the forces of militancy and progressivism in place in the two main sections of the American radical labor the world's most conservative trade union movement. It was pain­ movement. Reflecting, each in its own way, the stirring events we fully beginning to make a rounded conception and practise of have lived through in this country and abroad for the past few revolutionary Marxism a political force in this country-and who years, both the Socialist and ~ommunist parties are alive with had ever done it before? movement. N either of them ha~ been able to stand stock still under If the tersest general balance-sheet were drawn up of the first the impact of the great social events. First anchored at opposite decade of the coexistence of the Communist Party and the Socialist ends, the winds have driven them from their old moorings and Party, it would say: the latter acted a~ the brake on progress in toward each other. But because the ships are differently con ... the labor movement; the former acted as accelerator. The C.P. structed, differently manned and differently ballasted, they have revived the best traditions of Marxism as elucidated by the experi­ not only failed to meet anywhere in midstream, but have actually ences' of the post-war struggles in Europe, above all in Russi~. passed each other by and are continuing to sail in 'opposite direc­ The S.P. was reduced to a miniature edition of all that was de ... tions. crepit, reformist, conservative in the retrograde European social This signular phenomenon has been recorded in recent times to , democracy, but withou.: the latter's power to inflict the same in­ one degree or another in virtually all important countries. In the juries on the working class. United States, however, for a number of reasons, the development The decay of the official communist movement in the post-Lenin is more marked than in most other lands.' Briefly, before us is a period, which is not unconnected with the revival of the socialist situation where the traditional party of the Left is moving swiftly movement, fills, the longer part of the second post-war decade. The to the Right while the party of reformism is moving distinctly connection is quite clearly discernible in the United States. Given to the Left. At least in this country, the two parties have all but a generally correct policy and a democratic internal regime that changed places politically on a number of fundamental positions could correct the policy if it was not correct, there is no reason to in the proletarian movement. It is hard to find an analogous evolu­ believe that the Communist Party in this country would not by now tion in the history of the modern working class., It,S importance, have become a truly powerful political force without a serious therefore, is perf~ctly obvious and requires the close attention of social democratic rival. In the absence of both correct policy and the revolutionary Marxist.
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