^MILITANT Weekly Organ of the Communist League of America [Opposition]

Telephone: DRYdock 1656 NEW YOKK, N. Y. Saturday, June 14, 1930. Vol. IIINo. 23, MANIFESTO TO THE RANK AND FILE AND SEVENTH BACK TO LENIN! NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE C. P. U. S. A. rationalization, wage-slashing, and in gen- The crisis in, the Part;', manifest to and the creation of a huge army of the un- employed are having the effect of wiping eral an offensive upon the workers' stan- all but the self-contented/bureaucracy, de- dards of living, can only hasten the pro- mands the most serious attention of all out this illusion in the minds of broad Left Needle Workers sections of the working class. The sharp cess. U.S. imperialism can re-create a Communist workers. It is to aid them to bourgeois working class in this country, break through the rigid barriers erected contrast between the previous "prosperity" and the misery of unemployment which such as England had at the opening of Convention Meets by the ruling regime in the Party tor the the century, only by enslaving the rest worthless "pre-convention discussion" that and hangs like a Damoclean sword over has cut into more than 6 million workers of the world ,the mere endeavor of which The Second National Convention of the the Left Opposition addresses this appeal involves the most violent military and Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union to the Party membership. the rest of them, is jolting the working class out of its bourgeois stupor. A deep- revolutionary eruptions. met in New York City last Saturday and There is a widening gap between the going process of radicalization is begin- Under the pressure of these develop- Sunday, June 7th and 8th. There were over possibilities tor the strengthening of the ning to take place. The process will be ments, the American workers are moving four hundred delegates present of whom movement in the United States and the ac- accelerated by the exhaustion of the "pros- away from bourgeois Influence and ide- 307 hailed from New York. According to complishments that the leadership has to perity reserves" of the workers. The at- ology, and their former passivity. There official reports 200 shops sent delegates record. The increase in Party member- tempts of American capitalism to issue out is a growing mood for struggle and mili- from New York City. In other words this ship and influence over the workers cor- of its crisis by a re-adjustment of its in- tancy. The huge demonstration on March is an indication of the lack of Left wing resyionds less and less to the activity of dustry for more effective competition on 6 and even the smaller ones of May Day organization in the thousands of New York the Party. There is not a single mass the world market, attempts which spell ( Continued on Page 3 ) shops which were not represented. organization of the workers where the The two days of the convention were Party has succeeded in consolidating or devoted to combatting the Lovestoneites, advancing its position in the past year or without any intelligent discussion of tfc9 two, be it in the Left wing unions, in the actual needs of the union. The General conservative A. F. of L. and independ Rally to Weekly Executive Board that was elected was « dent unions, in the cooperatives, in the continuation of the Stalinist factionalism numerous language fraternal orders, etc. w York eaflsttae •which is undermining the Left wing in- etc. In the ranks of the Party itself there As we go to press, we are informed that the New York Execiitre of tha fluence in the unions. Not only were one- Is a deadening passivity, an indifference Communist League- (Opposition) lias met in response to our appeal for $2,000 to hundred percent members of the Stalin and a growing- dissatisfaction with the maintain Hie Weekly Militant, and has pledged a sum of $509.00 toward this end, faction and their pliant supporters elected prevailing Party course, which are pre- A Day's Pay from every member of the Branch wns accepted as an immediate action. to office but even Party members who at vented from completely paralyzing all ac- In addition, the Branch members will proofed to canfass sympathizers with special one time or another had happened to ex- tivity only by feverish administrative lash- lists, and will Inaugurate honse to house collections and other means to assure it press a word of criticism or were unfor- Ings and the ever harder measures of the quota of $500.00 being raised in the given time. tunate enough to harbor an independent) control commission. Sew York has set a good example. We look forward with confidence tot thought were eliminated from the G. E. B. In the upper strata of the Party, new ajtleauiite pledges and results throughout the country. in spite of their superior experience. "leaders" appear every day and old "lead- We go to press just as the convention ers" disappear or are deruot»d without The Militant has been a fighting guide to tiie Communists and Left wing in concluded and nre therefore compelled to the Party or working class knowing any- their struggle against the labor bureaucracy of the A. F. of L. and the "labor leaders" hold over for the next issue a thorough and thing about it until they are informed by of the Hillman-Beckerman A. C. W. crew. detailed analysis of the course and perspec- the official press. The suppression of all The Militant has fought for the organization of the masses of unorganized tives of the Industrial Union. Initiative and the complete dependence of workers into labor unions on a militant industrial basis. all activity upon decrees from above make the Party immobile, and the leadership en- For the Unemployed Save Georgia Class deavors to make up for the Party's fail- The Militant has conducted a campaign on behalf of the unemployed millions ure to meet situations in time by plunging under the slogans of work or compensation, tor social insurance, the six hour day It unprepared into adventures and con- and the five day week, etc., and has mercilesslessly and accurately shown up tha War Prisoners sequent debacles. thread-bare "prosperity" of the imperialist) regime of Hoover and Company. The Party's immobility and the lead- The Militant has maintained a consistent position for revolutionary Com- One of the most brazen examples of ership's adventurism is the more danger- munism, for the preservation and defense of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. It has American capitalist class justice is the at- ous because of the broad perspectives for with equal vigor combatted the revisionist theories, the opportunism and bureaucracy tempt to send to the electric chair the six the growth of Communism in thfe country. that have been nourished by and grown to huge proportions under the directions militant workers, H. M. Powers, Gilmer of the false disciples of Lenin — the Stalins and Bucharins. Brady, Henry Storey, Joseph Carr, Mary Apart! from the historical causes, the Dalton and Anna Burlak, the last three of immediate reasons for the bourgeois, class- For the Opposition whom are members of the Young Commun- collaborationist ideology and political back- The Militant has espoused the cause of the Russian Opposition — the Bolshevik. ist League, at Atlanta, Georgia. The South- wardness of the American workers have Leninists led by Trotsky— who, in prison or in exile, maintain the struggle for the ern Bourbons threaten to deprive them of been the relative prosperity it enjoyed in preservation of the proletarian dictatorship and who struggle for the regeneration of their lives for holding meetings of Negro the past few years and the privileged pos- the Party of Lenin on its October basis. and white unemployed workers and for ition it occupied in comparison with the The Militant fights for the building of a revolutionary Communist Party in distributing Communist literature! For European and Asiatic working class. The the United States on a Leninist foundation, as against the caricature of one as this they have resurrected from the ar- American workers have developed for the developed by the Fosters and Lovestones. chives of 1861 an unused law on insurrec- better part of a decade -under the illusion^ The Militant as a WEEKLY publication, has been better able to carry on tion. of a "permanent prosperity". these historic tasks tian in its early days as a semi-monthly paper. The indictment is so astounding that It The Economic Crisis Last week, we spoke of the danger and possibility of a return by the Militant seems almost incredible, But if anyone The collapse of the stock market, the to existence again as a semi-monthly. We called upon our readers, mebers and thinks this is just some farcical trickery deep-going decline and crisis in industry. sympathizers to render us financial assistance that we may continue as a Weekly with which the reactionaries of Georgia Mjlltant in the forthcoming period, and to solidify our position. are trying to amuse themselves let them Our Appeal at once drive this dangerous illusion out of their head. These legal lynchers are in For Unity of Communist Ranks We need $2,000.00, over and above our regular income of subscriptions, bundle deadly earnest. They want the blood of the payments, etc. to insure our existence as a Weekly publication for the next six months. We raise before the Party convention workers. They hope to terrorize the Negro We believe that we can count upon your support. and white workers, and prevent organiza- the question of restoring the Party mem- Respond generously for the maintenance of the WEEKLY MILITANT. bership of the expelled comrades of the tion for better conditions. They want to Help raise the $2.000.00 Fund for the WEEKLY MILITANT. maintain the South as the stronghold of Opposition on the basis of the foregoing SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTION AT ONCE TO THE MILITANT. 25 Third Ave, statement of aims and views, We also pro- New Yorto N. Y. feudal reaction while the most modern m»- pose to the Convention that it take a stand thods of industrial exploitation are devel- for the reestablishment of the Unity of the oped. But they live in the past. The alarm must be sounded. The work- Communist International by calling for the The Militant ers of America must be aroused to the reinstatement of the Russian and Inter- 25 Third Avenue terrible fate which await these six workers national Opposition, and for the immediate New York, New York cessation of those measures which espec- Dear Comri<'cs : in the prisons of Atlanta, if the blood- ially undermine the Party and the Prolet- hounds of the South are permitted to car- Enclosed please find $... as my contribution to the mainten- ry through their murderous plans. Re- arian Dictatorship and strengthen the en- ance of the WEJEKLY MILITANT emies of the working class—the arrests, member Sacco and Vanzetti! Remember Mooney and Billings! exile and banishment of the Russian Oppo- VAME sition. MILITAJfT 0 IT-FIX {} — FROM THE PLATFORM OF THE COMMUNIST OPPOSITION ADDRESS Members of New York Branch Com- ADOPTED (CHICAGO) MAY munist League (Opposition) and sympa- CITY , STATES thizers will have an outing Sunday, Jun» 20, 1929. 15, at Hunter Island. Hikers will meet a Pelham Bay Park Station at 10:30 ». tr Rige 2 T H B MILITANT Saturday, June 14, :1930

Our Mational Tonu* Senate Red-Baiting Scab Gunman is Vobe Starts Meetings Stir Great Enthusiasm Acquitted WASHINGTON— (FP)— Edgar Hoover, PHILADELPHIA— (FP)— "H 1 had it chief of the Bureau of .investigations in the Good crowds, despite the hot June ity c.,an be expected there. to do over again, I'd bump off the four of Department of Justice — the job formerly weather, are turning out to hear comrade Staliiiiles lioycott Meeting but Workers you." Those were the words of "Red" held by W. J. Burns— will testify behind Max Shachtman, now touring for the Com- Turn Out in Toronto Pheiffer, Aberle mill hosiery gunman tried locked doors, June 9, in the first session of, munist League of America (Opposition )on A crowd of 100 attended Shachtman's in Philadelphia for the murder of Striker the star-chamber hearings to be conducted his visit with L. D. Trotsky at Constantin- meeting in Toronto, Canada. The official Carl Mackley as he rode with Mackley's by the special House committee on in- ople and the conference of the Internation- Communist Party boycotted the meeting— three companions in a patrol wagon to the vestigation of Communist plots in the U.S. al Left Opposition at Paris, France and after the fashion of the Catholic Index— police station March 6 immediately after Rep. Pish of New York, chairman of Berlin, Germany. and actually had a picket line before the the murtter. Nevertheless he was acquitted. the committee, announced the program Splendid Meetings in Boston hall. They did not dare to participate in Walter Morrow, one of the unionist's The Boston meeting was a splendid and the meeting and to discuss the issues, re- companions testified to Pheiffer's words as when he emerged from a secret session of enthusiastic gathering with over 100 in the five committeemen in Speaker Long- alizing that they would be uncovered be- the strikebreakars went on trial. Young worth's office, June 4. Longworth, Majority attendance. A good discussion followed fore the workers and exposed as opportun- Mackley was riding with three other Aber- Leader Ti'.son and Chairman Snell of the the lecture, in which the Lovestoneite, Ste- ists and political cowards. Shachtman's le strikers the night their auto was met rules committee, the actual bosses of the phens took part, and to whom comrade speech made a strong impression upon the by one filled with gunmen, all of whom Shachtrean replied effectively and strongly. audience with his review of the actual fired pointblank into the union car. By House, had been in meeting with Fish and On the morning of the same day, comrade his associates. They had apparetnly agreed program of the Left Opposition and its ac- some miracle Morrow, William, Zimmer- that about $40,000 would be provided by Shachtman spoke before Branch No. 27 of tivities. man and John Cooper were not also killed. the Independent Workmen's Circle on A banquest is scheduled on the follow- Red Pheiffer and his fellow-strike the House for the early expense of the "The Communists and Work in the Mass ing day. of which as we go to press, we do probe. breakers were given guns by a private Organizations". Sixty people were pre- not yet have reports. detective agency employed by the Aberle Barring of the press and public from sent, evincing great interest and applaud- The immediate dates that follow on the mill company, the Hosiery Workers Feder- the hearings at which the governmental ing the position of the Communist League. tour are Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and ation charges. All three of the union sur- departments' officials will testify, was de- The Boston branch members are highly Detroit, Mich. vivors, on the witness stand, told of the clared by Fish to be necessary. Oscar pleased over the results and expect as a Chicago, Twin Cities and lake Cities murder of their friend. The union and Luhring, head of the criminal section of the result to gather new forces and to increase Prepare Extensively the scab car had come to a halt before a Department of Justice, was slated as the their activities. Beginning with June 9th, comrade red traffic light. Zimmerman heard the second witness. After him would be sum- Tiie Philadelphia Meeting Shachtman will have numerous meetings scabs yell out, "Now throw your brides." moned anti-ra-dical spokesmen from the In Philadelphia damrade Shachttnan in Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth Then he heard another cry: "Let them Labor, Postoffice, War, Navy, Treasury spoke before 60 workers. A warm discus- and Superior, and then proceed westward have it". Commerce and State Departments. The sion took place in which a Communist to Kansas City. Extensive preparations Then bullets began (o fly. All four evidence and allegations given to the com- Party defender found himself in a defense- have been made in these cities for the gunmen blazed away. A, bullet grazed mittee by these administration officials was less position — ideologicall:". meetings, white will undoubtedly prove Zimmeraman's face and went through his to be confidential. The press would have The small branch of New Haven had the largest yet. The remainder of the hat before he could duck, he testified. He no chance to analyze or dispute it. a good-sized meeting and additional activ- schedule follows. flopped behind the rumble seat and pull- On the other hand, Fish said, he ex- ed his companion, young Cooper, with pected to summon President Green of the him. Another bullet passed through the American Federation of Labor and Acting r metal shield and pierced Zimmerman's President) Woll of the National Civic Fed- back and lungs. A bullet, hit Cooper but eration to testify in open sessions. The Watch This Schedule for Your City j did not wound him seriously. date for their appearance had still to be Mackley, a youngster highly respected arranged. When Congress adjourns, the MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., KANSAS CITY, MO. by his fellow workers in the Aberle mill committee will conduct hearings in New Friday, June 13, Mass Meeting at Thursday & Saturday, June 19 and and u staunch strike leader when the mil! York City. Ralph Easly of the National COOKS & WAITERS UNION HALL, 21—Branch Meetings. was struck because of wage cuts and the Civic Federation and other prominent anti- .r)20 Hennepin Avenue (above Unique ST. LOUIS, MO. yellow dog contract, was trying to open Communists will be invited at that time. Theatre). Sunday-Monday, June 22-23. (Place the door of. the coupe when he was mor- To the surprise of his critics, Fish an- WINJiJEAPOLLS, MIS'*. to be announced). tally wounded, his companions told (he nounced that no counsel would be employ- Saturday, June 14. Twin City SPPKIXfll'IELD, ILL. court. Ilia body was found lying almost ed by his committee at the start. Four Membership Meeting. Tuesday, June 24. (Place to be under the wheels of the car. lawyers are members of the committee, and ST. PAUL, MINN. announced.) it appeared that one or more of them had Sunday ,.Iune .15. Mass Meeting CLEVELAND, OHIO Leftist Sectarianism in Toronto proposed that) the committee do its own at LABOR TEMPLE, 8 p.m. Wednesday June 25, Mass Meeting at work, so far as the questioning of witness- DULUTH, MI»T. Needle Trades es is concerned. But a staff of detectives Monday. June 36, Mass Meeting at PAINTERS HALL 2030 Kuclid. will be employed at once. They will be CAMEL HALL, 12 E. Superior St. Thursday, June 26 Membership Meet When in Toronto the bureaucrats: of ing. called investigators, and will be picked by SUPERIOR, WISCONSIN the I. L. ('!. W. ('. working with the bosses Fish with a view to gathering all possible Tuesday, June 17, Mass Meeting at lorwvsTowN ,onro betrayed the strike of the cloakmalters, pro- evidence of Communist propaganda against WORKERS HALL, Tower Avenue. Friday, June 27. (Place to be an- inising them better conditions but utiliz- nounced.) ing the militancy of the rank and file to American government, KANSAS CITY, Mo. Edgar Hoover, chief of detectives for 1MTTS1SUKG, PA. seat themselves more firmly in the bureau- Hie Department of Justice, was the law Friday, June 20. Mass Meeting at Saturday-Sunday, June 28-29. cratic sa I lie—I expected that now the officer of that bureau at the time of the —HALL, 914 Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor. (Place to be announced.) Left wing Industrial Union would under- Palmer "red raids" and what the late Louis stand its duty and organize the Left wing- 9. Post called the '"Deportation Delirium ers insifie the J.L.G.W.U. shops. Numbers of 1919-20'". He was feverishly acjlive of Left wingers have been forced by econ- against labor radicals in that after-war Upholsterers Organize to THE WORK IN THE ()LD UNIONS omic necessity to register with the clasH- period of unrest, and he convinced Im- Speed-Up The work in the old unions has been collaboration I. L. G. W. U. migration Commissioner Caminetti that the virtually abandoned. This fact is clearly This has not been the case. Under the Communists were about to attempt armed MINNEAPOLIS— revealed in the almof.l complete disap- direction of the Stalinist Party officialdom, revolt if conditions seemed favorable. Cam- Upholsterers Union No. 61, Minneapolis pearance of the Party representatives from one opportunity aftter another has been inetti, frightened, caused warrants to be is conducting a drive to organize the un- trade union gatherings. Still worse, the lost to give organized expression to the issued for the sudden arrest) on deporta- organized upholsterers. The organization leaders of the factions are competing with grievances of the rank and file in the tion charges, of 20,000 alien workers in in- Committee, composed of John Brinda, Israel each other in the elaboration of "theories" Schlesinger union and also to the readi- dustrial centers throughout) the country. Colton and Carl Cowl has issued the first which preclude the idea of serious work ness of the Left wingers to fight the Schles- Thousands of these workers were herded of a series of leaflets describing conditions in the old unions in the future. inger machine from within. The Party into over-crowded cells, into corridors of among the upholstery workers and calling The factions are outdoing each other bureaucrats and their puppets in the In- federal buildings and other unfit places of upon the workers in the industry to join in irresponsible striving to be "Left" in dustrial union leadership simply proceeded Imprisonment, and were held under bar- the union. The Union meets the 1st and 3rd this burning question. These theories and to expel from both the Party and the Young barous conditions for days. Their release Thursday of each month at 60—4th Ave So. practises are a menace to the Party and Communist League the needle trades com- under bond or upon showing of false ar- at 8 o'clock. threaten to put it off the track again It rades who had been forced by the mean- rest, were effected in some cities, such as MINNEAPOLIS— is time to sound a warning and begin a ace of starvation to register. Detroit, only after citizens' committees MSke Mihalick, upholsterer at Levin determined struggle against them. The If we had a fraction inside he I.L.G.W.U. had demanded that Palmer's hysterical per- Brothers Furniture Co., suffered the logs building of the new unions and the work in we could have had a big following. The secutions be stopped. Only a few of the of one eye and possibly both from injur- the old unions must be carried on together betrayals and the class collaboration of army of victims of these raids were found ies received from a flying piece of spring and not the one set up against the other. the Schlesinger clique are so menifest that to be legally liable to deportation. Several steel while tying up springs. Due to the — FROM THE PLATFORM OF the workers are ready to follow the Left if deaths resulted from the raids. The wife vicious speed-up system in Levin Brothers THE COMMUNIST OPPOSITION they were given an organized lead. All of one man thus arrested went insane. such accidents are growing more and more ADOPTED (CHICAGO) MAY Summer 1Jie Cloakmakers Section of the common. Upholsterers Union No. 61 has 20, 1929. Industrial Union did not even meet and launched a campaign of organization in the did not discuss their needs and policies. industry as a step towards the abolition of Evidently things are no" better in Montreal. the misery and sickness produced by the The Stalin policy works the same ruin in SAN FRANCISCO— (FP)— Five Com- the unions as in the Party. munists one a woman, Ida Rothstein, .or- speed-up. EMX Mo.2 —A TORONTO CLOAKMAKER ganizer for the Trade Union Unity League, Yiddish-speaking comrades should take have been sentenced to the San Francisco PITTSTON, Pa.—(FP)—A general strike note that the second number of Klorheit, county jail on rioting charges arising from of all Pittston Coal Co. miners is near organ of the Jewish Left Opposition group If the number on your wrapper is a demonstration against deportation of unless the company retreats from its posi- f members of the Party. All received 30 days tion of closing down part of its mines in France, has arrived. It contains among other articles the second installment of except) one, sentenced to 90 days; one de- altogether while allowing others to operate. then your subscriptio4n8 to the Militant has fendant failed to appear. All have appeal- The union miners are demanding that work comrade Trotsky's "The Third Period of expired. Renew immediately in order to ed the case and are out on bail. be equalized among the various collieries. the Mistakes of the Comintern." avoid missing any issues.

THE MILITANT, Vol. IIINo. 23, June 14, 1930 Published weekly by the Com munist League of America (Opposition) at 25 Third Avenue New York N Y—SuT" tription rate: »2.00 per year; foreign $2.50. Five cents per copy. Bundle rates, 3 cents per copy. Editorial Board: Martin Abern, James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman' Mau Ice Spector, Arne Swabeck. Entered as second class mail matter November 28, 1928, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y. under the act of March 3 1879 /•Tntoi *„ ^. THE MILITANT Saturday, June 14,1930. Manifesto to Seventh Convention of the C. P. U. S. A. crisis or rendered impotent by stagnation Imed with timid oonserva,tism, dragging ( Continued from Page 1) ism in the working class. The United Front Policy and passivity. That is the balance sheet along behind the masses, bureaucratio (we do not speak here ot tlie bluff and From united fronts exclusively al tlie of Stalinism in the Comintern, "maneuvers" and "united fronts" at the top exaggerations ot the Party leadership, or top, with bureaucrats like Purcell ,Pim- This condition is part and parcel of the with all varieties of reformist leaders, ex- of their incompetent direction which re- inen, and their ilk, or with reactionary crisis in Mie Soviet Union and the Rus- aggerations of the omnipotence of Amer- s>.;licd in the frittering away of these gains> militarists and national bourgeois like sian Party. The attempt to bridga the gulf ican imperialism, faith in the capture of and the alarm of the American "bourgeoisie Chiang Kai-Shek or Calles, the official pol- between an isolated proletarian sly to and (lie official trade union apparatus as a sub- at, the "specter" of Communism, are signs icy has been changed today to no united the retarded world revolution \v.' t the stitute for the struggle to win over the of the changing situation. In addition, front at all, that is, no united front with Utopian, reactionary theory of "socialism workers in the ranks. Its whole line of sections of the workers are moving from non-Communist workers who are still in a single country" has failed in two dif- thought and action fitted it eminently to acquiescence in the leadership of Green, under the influence of the reformists. The ferent ways. Proceeding from this theory lead the reactionary campaign against Woll and Co. to participation in the var- ruling apparatus and its spokesmen in all the Stalin-Bucharin regime proclaimed that1 "Trotskyism", which the present manufac- ious "progressive" movements, the Confer- the Parties have changed from their con- socialism would be built "at a snail's pace" tured leadership is seeking so vainly to ence for Progressive Labor Action, and to ception of the "progressive" leaders as by the "kulak growing into socialism". continue. a certain extent the new "Left wing" of fighters against imperialism to a concep- This perspective of decades-long cap- We stamped the nature and course of the socialist party. For the workers; this tion of the progressive workers as "social italist stabilization was accompanied by this group correctly and in time. We is a movement towards the Left. Muste, fascists". Both conceptions have a com- resting upon and mobilizing all the anti- fought against its liquidationist tendencies Thomas and Co. form the ideological and mon base: the surrender of the non-Com- proletarian elements in the Soviet Union instead of uniting with it to expel the Left organizational curb on this movement, a munist workers to the control of the re- in the campaign against the Left Opposi- Opposition. The official leaders of thft "safety valve" against Communism, a rut formist leaders. tion. The course towards the Kulak cul- Party have now undertaken a belated for the harmless canalization of the for- However, the labelling of reformists minated not only with the organizational struggle against the Right wing but they ward movement of the ranks. as "social fascists" does not result in the crushing of the Leninist group in the Rus- are incompetent to conduct it. In reality, American Reformism decline of their strength and influence. sian Party, but also with the "Woodless they have helped to strengthen it, and that There is no foundation for the idea Social reformism is growing in the Kulak uprising" of 1928. The pressure of in three ways: by uniting with it against that' the half-way house of reformism, or U.S.—not a little of which is attributable to the Opposition's ideas and the proletarian us; by carrying out such an adventurist, its "Left" variety, must be occupied by the policies of official Communism. The petty core of the country compelled the rupture sectarian, ultra-Leftist policy that they the American workers for a long time. bourgeoisie, heavily hit by the industrial of the Right-Center bloc and the commence- play into the hands of the Right wing and There is no fatalistic analogy between the and stock market crises, is seeking polit- ment of the zig-zag to the "Left" of the drive many Communist workers in its di- development of the German or Brt 'sh ical expression manifest in the tendencies Stalinist faction. But just as the Stalinist rection; by methods of hooliganism and working class and that of the American towards a "third party", and in the in- faction abandoned—with one foot—the po- "strong arguments" which discredit the proletariat. The unevenness of social strug- crease of the socialist party vote and or- sitions of the Right for those of adventur- Party and only create an artificial sympa- gles and development, and the abrupt ganization, to which the desperate middle ism, so surely is it now preparing to re- thy for the Right wing. The Centrists, t'n L.nges inherent in the imperialist epoch, class so largely contributed (Thomas vote turn to its former position and to heal bound to the Right wing by a hundred the- speak against this analogy. That, decades in New York). its temporary breach with the Thermidor- oretical threads, are incapable of conduct- elt«;>sed between the bourgeois and prolet- The socialist party is gaining not only ian elements of the Right wing. This ing a serious Marxist struggle against it. arian revolutions, in let us say, Germany, among the middle class, but also among movement backward, foretold by the Op- The smashing of Centrist* impotence anfi was not at all an absolute precedent for the workers: in the new miners' unions of position, is now in the process of realiza- theoretical confusion wilj be the heaviert the interval between them in Russia. The Howat-Fishwick-Brophy-Gerniier-Ameringer, tion. The serious situation engendered blow against its former and future ally, British and German workers went through and in partial reestablishment of socialist by the adventurist course of Stalinist Cen- the Right wing. their long period of reformist domination strength in the needle trades unions. In trisin in Soviet economy, which brought As in our struggle against the Right dU: ing the upward swing of world imper- the South, the sectarianism and blunders about a virtual rupture of the bonds be- wing, the course of events has more than ial: '•!!. of the Communist Party have made it eas- tween the proletariat and peasantry, which sufficiently justified our opposition to the ''l>o American working class is devel- ier for both the A. F. of L. bureaucracy to tightened the bureaucratic stranglehold present Centrist regime in the Party. Th« op:-.; to maturity after the world war. in play its ordained role of labor agent for that stifles the Party and reduces it to an latter has only deepened the crisis engen- the period of the collapse of world imper- capitalism and the Musteites to play the automaton, demands the active interven- dered by the previous rule of the Love- ialism of violent wars, of proletarian and role of shock absorber for Green and Co. tion of every Communist worker. stone faction. It has weakened the Party, colonial revolution, of the existence of an against the militancy of the workers. The predictions and the program of paralyzed its activity, cut down its influ- international Communist movement which The sectarian, ultra-Leftist line of the the Left Opposition have been confirmed a ence and prestige among the militant work- concentrates within it enormous exper- Party, its failure to apply the tactic of the thousand times over. For that "crime" it ers. It has driven away hundreds and even iences. These facts, and America's invol- united front, its refusal to penetrate and has been subjected to the foulest slanders, thousands of workers from the Party; it ve 'icnO and dependence upon a declining work within movements, not under the di- to Imprisonment, exile, deportation and has been unable to hold the thousands of auj anarchical economy, make probable a rect, control of the Party has enabled Green even assassination. In exile, in the fac- workers who have recently come to the si;ii'-it!on in which the reformist, expe.r- to have a free field in the South (and in tories, in prison and in the Party, the Left, Party; it will continue to be incapable of ie'>:o3 of the working class here can be the A. F. of ti. as a whole), has enabled Opposition (Bolshevik-Leninists) stand on holding the many others who move towards tnv rsod with uprec-edented rapidity. the Musteites to play their treacherous guard for the revolution and its conquests. Communism under the impulsions of the ''!.!.-< process and its speed are not- game in Marion and Blizabethton without It is the revolution's reserve of gold. The struggle. an' ',;/tic. Their, acceleration depends the Left wing having any chance to inter- American Opposition proudly re-affirms its Solution of the Party Crisis la s<'iy upon the Communists. It is the vene, has enabled the Muste-Fishwick com- solidarity with the Russian comrades. Their The pre-requisite for the solution of task of the Communist Party to reduce to bination to establish their control in th-? reinstatement into the Party, like otir own, the crisis is clarity and understanding of the. smallest minimum Hie "reformist per- Illinois mine field without effective chal- is the principal guarantee for the advance- its nature and its source. To attain this iod" of the American workers, to paralyze lenge? from the Left wing. ment of the movement and the solution of clarity and understanding, the Party re- the power of the Left and Right wing re- its crisis. The Party must change its course and * * *• quires a genuine, a free discussion, which formists, to fight for every worker whom adopt instead the tactic of the united front. we have not had up to now because it is they still influence. But it is precisely Applied in a revolutionary sense, and not Tins KigVit Wing and Stalin t'wctiona officially prohibited. For such a discus- here that the present course of the Party in its pro-Purcell, pro-Ch,!ang Kai-Shek The pre-conventdon "discussion" up to sion, the Party requires the re-establish- and the leadership foisted upon it demon- interpretation, it is a tnosU effective .instru- now, the fact that the "theses" wore offi- ment of workers' democracy. For work- strate their impotence. The great oppor- ment for separating the workers from their cially and finally adopted long before the ers' democracy, the Party requires an in- tunities are allowed to pass by entirely, or reformist leaders, and helping to speed discussion comnvjnaed, and all Stalinist transigeant struggle against the Party bur- else they are misused and, ruined to the the movement of the American proletariat precedents, are sufficient indication that eaucracy appointed from above and against detriment of our movement and the advan- along the revolutionary path. The present the convention will be another meeting of the regime which it represents and by tage of its enemies. line of the Party is' a brake on this the functionaries of the Stalinist faction, which it lives. Fruits of the "Xliird Period" movement. with a purely formal and decorative at- The Party must be returned to the The weaknesses and the defeats of the * * * tendance of workers-delegates. The con- Party membership! Party, and conversely, the growth, of re- International Hoots of Party Crisis vention will prove incapable of solving the The .Left Opposition, since its existence formism, are traceable to the policies pur- The crisis in the American Party is urgent problems of the Partly. Our ap- as a separate group formally outside the sued by official Communism for the past not an isolated phenomenon; it is a part peal is therefore directed primarily and Party as a result of bureaucratic expul- six years, and more recently, to the theory of the crisis in the XJ. 8 . S . R. and the essentially to the worker-Communists in sion, has continued to fight for its prin- and practise of the "third period". The Communist International. That crisis de- the Party. cipled viewpoint and to defend the found- theory of the "third period" "with its thor- veloped under the reatcionary banner of Our warning against, and designation ations of Communism, even under the ex- tmghly opportunist motivation, officially the struggle against an alleged "Trotsky- of the character of the Lovestone group, tremest provocations of the apparatus. It inaugurated the present ultra-Leftist zig- ism", that is, in reality against the funda- made while it was still the American rep- is pledged to continue this struggle. The zag of the Comintern. mental principles and strategy of Marxism resentatives of the ruling regime in the Centrist regime's deformation and discred- The arbitrary proclamation of a "third and Leninism. The "Lett course" has not Russian Party and the International, have iting of fundamental principles upon which period" was. intended to serve as the the- alleviated this crisis. It has only brought been more than confirmed by subsequent our Party and our International were oretical foundation for explaining away the it to full bloom. The Parties of the Inter- events. We characterized the Lovestone built, only necessitates a firmer and more past crimes and blunders of the Right- national are everywhere incapable of mea- faction as a Right wing group, which was relentless strugggle in our Party since Centrist bloc in the International (Stalin- suring up to their tasks, and are paying leaving the positions of Communist prin- the whole future of our movement is in- Bucharin). The fatal subordination of the with defeats for the past years of Stalinist ciple, at the moment when half of the volved. The great problems with which the Chinese Communist Party to the bourgeois corrosion. present leadership of the Party was an whole movement, particularly the Ame^ Kuo Min Tang, which enabled the Chiang In India, with a revolutionary situa- integral part of the Lovestone group (Min- ican, are confronted demand the re-inco*w Kai-Sheks to mount to power over the or, Bedacht, Stachel, Weinstone) and the poration of the Opposition into the Party. corpses of the Chinese proletariat and pea- tion, there Is no Communist Party in exist- emce, and the mass movement is threatened other half was in a bloc with that group to Our fight for Communism must of neces- santry, was and is justified by its oc- with complete strangr.lation by Gandhi, expel us from the Party (Foster, Browder, sity be conducted in fraternal solidarity, currence in the "second period". The bur- Nehru and other representatives of the na- Hathaway). All the noise and "predic- shoulder to shoulder with the Communist eaucratic protection which the Anglo-Rus- tions" of the "uniting" of the Right) and workers in the ranks of the Party. It is sian Committee gave to Parcel!, Hicks, tional bourgeoisie. In Great Britain, uhe hostility of the workers towards the mon- Left Oppositions—is designed to conceal the they, and not the miserable, blind bur- Swales and Co. after they had stabbed the strous treachery of MacDonald and the damning fact of the unity between the eaucrats, who will decide in the end. Id British workers in the back, was and is Labor Party js being transfjrmud into Lovestones and Fosters in the fight against is to this'end that we are working. It is explained away by the "second period". support for the "Left" wing ot the Ind- us. for the clarity needed to attain this end The course based upon the Kulak in the The Right wing has turned its that we address ourselves—now, in the Soviet Union, the reactionary struggle pendent Labor Party; the official Comrm'n- Ut Party ;a virtually out of tVe picture back upon internationalism, and applied the past, and in the future—to the Communist against the industrialization proposals and In Austria, Italy and Spain, where there Stalin-Bucharla theory of "socialism in workers. the rest of the program ot the Leninist are powerful or potential mass movements one country" to the United Slates. It has National Committee of the Opposition, is similarly excused. There is, against faNcism, the Communist Parties are crystallized its opportunist conceptions of Communist League of America (Opposition) however no change in the practical con- Communist work among the masses, which, Martin Abern, James P. Cannon, Albert sequences ot the "thivd period", which, reduced to unimportant sects with no sub- stantial Influence. There Is hardly a Party while it led the Party under Stalinist dis- M. Glotzer, Max Shachtman, Carl Skoglun^ Hk3 the practise of the "second" results pensation, was always so thoroughly ini- Maurice Spector, Arne Swabeck in ronliliy in tha strengthening of reform- in the International that is not torn by a Page 4 THE MILITAN* Saturday, June 14, 1930 The Slogan of the National Assembly in China (China has been and will continue By L D. TROTSKY itics through the medium of the universal to be one of the touchstones of Marx- suffrage. The handful of Communists know ist theory and Leninist strategy in ths yesterday of the Revolution. But let us one day but possibly several months but even today that universal suffrage is an in- Communist International. The Stalin suppose that the bourgeois provisional that would have enriched the political ex- strument of bourgeois rule and that they regime has brought an incredible amount government had been sufficiently decisive periences of the laboring masses and not can liquidate this rule only through the of confusion into the ranks of the Com- to convene. the Constituent Assembly in only would not have retarded the prolet- medium of the proletarian dictatorship. In munists regarding the character, the March or April (1917). Was it possible? arian revolution but would rather have ac- this spirit you can educate beforehand the perspectives and the slogans of the Naturally it was. The Cadets were busy celerated it. This in itself would have proletarian vanguard. But the millions of Chinese revolution. This important with legal trickery to drag out the con- been of greatest significance. If the se- the toiling masses can come to the dictat- contribution by Trotsky on the slogan vening of the Constituent Assembly in the cond revolution would have occurred not orship of the proletariat only on the basia of the Constituent Assembly was writ- hope that the revolutionary wave would in October but let us say in July or Aug- of their own political experience and the ten in reply to some questions of the subside. The Mensheviks and the Social ust the army at the front would have been National Assembly would b.i a progressive Chinese comrades but it is of universal Revolutionaries took their cue from the less exhausted and weakened and the peace step on this road. This is why we come concern to all proletarian revolutionar- Cadets. If the Mensheviks and the Social with the Hohenzollerns might have been out for this slogan Jn conjunction with, ies. —Editors.) Revolutionaries would have had a little more favorable to us. Even if we should four other slogans of the democratic rev- more revolutionary drive in them they could assume that the proletarian revolution olution: the transfer of the land to the It seems to me that our Chinese friends have convened the Constituent Assembly would not come a single day sconer because peasant poor; the eight hour work-day; the Jniport too much of metaphysics and .-even in a few weeks. Would we Bolsheviks have of the Constituent Assembly, the school of independence of China; the right of s»lf- some scholasticism into the question of participated in the elections and in the As- revolutionary parliamentarism would not determination of the nationalities included political slogans of democracy. sembly itself? Undoubtedly.for it was we have passed without leaving its trace on in the territory of China. The "delicacies' begin with the name: •who demanded all the time the speediest the political level of the masses and this It is understood that we cannot deny Constituent Assembly or National Assem- convening of the Constituent Assembly. would have made our tasks the d-ay after also such a perspective—it is theoretically bly. In Russia until tl^e revolution we used Would the course of the revolution have the October Revolution much easier. admissable—that the Chinese proletariat the slogan of Constituent Assembly, be- changed to the disadvantage of the prolet- A Slogan to Mobilize the Masses leading the peasant masses and supporting cause it most clearly emphasized our break ariat by an early convening of the Assem- Is this sort of a variant possible in itself on the Soviets will come to power with the past. But you write that in Chin- bly? Not at all. Perhaps you remember China? It is not excluded. To imagine before the achievement of the National ese it is difficult to formulate this slogan. that the representatives of the Russian pos- and expect that tho Communist Assembly in one or another form. But If so, it remains to adopt the slogan of sessing classes and following them also the Party of China can make the jump from for the immediate period this is at any rate the National Assembly. For the conscious- conciliators were postponing all the im- the present conditions of the rule of the improbable, because it presupposes the ex- ness of the masses the contents of this portant questions of the revolution "until unbridled bourgeois military cliques, the istence of a powerful and centralized rev- slogan will depend, firstdy, in the implica- the Constituent Assembly", at the same oppression and dismemberment of the olutionary party of the proletariat. But in. tion the revolutionary agitation will give time also dragging out the convening of working class, and the extraordinary low its absence what other forces will unite It, and secondly, on the events. You ask: it. This gave the landowners and cap- ebb of the peasant movement to the sei- the revolutionary masses of your gigantic "Is it possible to carry on agitation for a italists a possibility to mask to a certain zure of power—this would be to believe in country? In the meantime It is our mis- Constituent Assembly while denying that) extent their propertv interests in the ag- miracles. Jn practise this leads to guerilla fortune that there is no strong centralized It can be accomplished?" But why should rarian question, industrial, etc. If the Con- adventurism, to which the Comintern now Communist Party In China as yet. It first we decide beforehand that it cannot be ac- stituent Assembly would have convened lends its covert support. We must con- has to be formed. The struggle for dem- complished? Of course the masses will let us say in April 1917 then all the social demn this policy and guard the revolu- ocracy is the precisely necessary condition follow the slogan only if they consider questions would have been raised before tionary workers from it. for^that. The slogan of the National As- It) feasible. Who will accomplish it, and them. The possessing classes would have The political mobilization of the pro- sembly would unite the scattered provin- tow will it be accomplished? Here only been compelled to show their cards, the letariat and following it the peasant masses cial movements and uprisings, give them suppositions are possible. 'In case of the treacherous role of the conciliators would is the first task that must be solved in con- political unity and create the basis for further weakening of the militttry-Kuo- have been apparent, the Bolshevik faction junction with the present circumstances. welding together the Communist Party as znintang regime and the growth of dis- of the Constituent Assembly would have And these are the circumstances of the an all-national leader of the proletariat content among the masses, particularly in, acquired the greatest popularity and have military-bourgeois counter revolution, the and the entire toiling mass. the cities, it) is possible that an attempt assisted the Soviets to elect a Bolshevik power of the suppressed masses is in their That is why the slogan of the National will be made by a part of the Kuomingtang majority. Under these circumstances the Con- number. When they awaken they strive to Assembly (on the basis of the universal, together with a "third party" to convene stituent) Assembly would have existed not express their strength of numbers in pol- direct equal and secret ballot) must be something on the style of a National As- raised as forcefully as possible and a sembly. Of course, they will as much as Mia the OEti»ofi>ig£«ii courageous decisive struggle developed possible cut into the rights of the more around it. A month sooner or later tlie oppressed classes and layers. Will we sterility of the purely negative position of Communists, go into such a curtailed and the Comintern and the official leadership of. manipulated National Assembly? If we will Pertinent Questions to the Prometeo Group Ifte Chinese Communist Party will merci- not be strong enough to replace it, thati is Dear Comrades: Particular tactical disagreements are lessly expose itself| This will happen the to take over power, we will, of course, go sooner, the more decisively the Left Com- In. Such a stage would in no way weaken A few months ago you addressed to absolutely unavoidable and can be no ob- me an open letter to which 1 thca replied. stacle for close common work in the frame- munist Opposition will unfold and develop \is. On the contrary, it would help us its campaign for the slogans of democracy. gather and develop the forces of the pro- Now it seems to me the time has come work of an international organization. to address an open letter to your group. Wherein do your disagreements with the In this case the inevitable crash of the pol- letarian vanguard. Inside the pseudo-as- icy of the Comintern will greatly strength- sembly, and particularly on the outside In Paris a preliminary conference of Left Opposition consist? Are they of a the International Left Opposition was re- principled or of an episodic character? You en the Left Opposition and will help it of it, we would carry on our agitation for become the decisive force in the Chinese a new and more democratic assembly. In cently held. This conference is a must reply to this clearly and precisely. proletariat. 9ase of a revolutionary mass movement we serious step forward because it was made 3.) Your absence from the prelimin- April 2, 1930 would simultaneously build Soviets. It is possible only in consequence of lengthy ary international conference can be inter- very possible that in such an event the preparatory work of an ideological charac- preted that there are disagreements of petty-bourgeois parties would convene a ter. Your group, before the eyes of which principle that divide you frof the Left Op- comparatively more democratic National As- this work was being developed, did not position. If this be so a third question The Economic Crisis sembly, as a dam against the Soviets. consider iti possible to participate in this crops up: why don't yon proceed with the conference. This extremely important fact organization of an international faction of American capitalism has been unable Would we participate in such a sort of to overcome the serious depressions in ag- representation?. Of course we would par- of absenteeism prompts me to ask you your own current? After all you cannot the following questions: conceive that revolutionary principles ad- riculture and in the coal, oil, textile, ship- ticipate Again, if we would not be strong ping and other industries, nor will it be snough to replace the assembly with a 1.) Do you assume that Communism aptable for the whole world are not applic- can have a national character? This for able to Italy or vice versa. The passive- able to prevent the coming decline in iron higher form of government, that is the and steel and autombile industries. Soviets. But such a possibility reveals example, is the position of Urbahns, who, conciliatory attitude towards the Left Op- while repeating the ritualistic formulas of position combined with reluctance to join The rapid increase in brokerage loans, Itself only at the highest point of revol- Jn face of an average trading volume of lutionary ascent. Elut as it is presently, internationalism, created a purely Gerr it and the refusal to participate in the life man sect having no connections in the of the Communist vanguard of other more than five million shares a day, pre- we have not as yet approached the begin- sages the beginning of the end of the ''Imfl" ning. whole world and consequently deprived of countries is characteristic of national so- revolutionary perspective. Therefore do cialism or national Communism and has market far more profoundly than the price Even if the Soviets were a fact—which you regard yourselves as a national cur- nothing in common with Marxist Commun- fall of June 1928. The fact that rates for Is not the case in China at present—this rent or part of an international current I ism. stock-market had to be doubled and. In itself would not be cause enough for the 2.) If in your answer to this question Your reply to these questions is of quadrupled.has caused the more realistic abandonment of the slogan of the National you state that you are fully satisfied with serious consequence not only from the in- of the bourgeois economists to be very Assembly. The majority in< the Soviets may your isolated national existence then there ternational but first of all from the Ital- cautious in their predictions for the coming be (and at the beginning will certainly be) would be no room for any further ques- ian point of view in so far as these two year. In the hands of conciliatory and Centrist tions. But I have no doubt that you con- viewpoints can be In any way set off The fate of American imperialism, we parties and organizations. We will be sider yourselves internationalists. In this against one another. The illegal charac- repeat, is now bound up with its depend- interested to have these parties exposed in case the second question looms up: to ter of the Italian Communist Party makes ence on world economy. Conversely the the open forum of the National Assembly. what particular international current do it difficult to follow up developments. Ne- situation in Europe is directly- linked with By this method the majority of the Soviets you belong? There are now three basic vertheless there can be no doubt that with- the development of American national ec- will be won over to our side sooner, and currents in international Communism: the in the framework of the Italian Communist onomy. The United States will seek to much more certainly. When our conquest Centrist, the Right and the Left (Lenin- Party there are -besides the official fac- use Europe as a shield to take the blows of of the majority will become a reality, we ist). Besides these there are different kinds tion, your group and the group of Rights its own difficulties. This will in turn create will counter-pose the program of the So- of ultra-Left offshoots who grppe about be- (Tasca), numerous revolutionary elements such situations in Europe, above all in viets against the program of the National tween Marxism and anarchism. Until now who have not yet openly formulated their Germany, where with proper revolution- Assembly, we will gather the majority of the we thought that you stood nearest to the positions. Under these circumstances ary leadership, a new wave of proletarian country around the banner of the Soviets, Left) Opposition. Your hesitancy we as- you are among the indefinite element*. revolt will be initiated, or the relations be- •which will give us the possibility, in deed cribed to your possible desire to orientate Meanwhile precisely the illegal existence tween England and America will come to »nd not on paper, to replace the National yourselves i:i C*« iorelopment of the Left of the Party demands with double force the breaking point. This rapidly mater- Assembly, this parliamentary-democratic Opposition. l**t M<1tanny cannot be main- the full principled clarity of the leading ializing process will change the correlation Institution, by Soviets, as the organ of the tained forever. Life is not stagnant ei- groups. Your reply will help speed up the of forces in the United States in favor of revolutionary class dictatorship. ther in Italy or in the rest of the world. ideological crystallization within the Ital- the revolutionary proletariat, by undermin- The Constituent Assembly in Russia In order to join the International Left ian proletarian vanguard. ing the base of the American labor o.ristoc- In Russia, the Constituent Assembly there is no need whatever for false "mono- It is needless to say that the Russian facy. misted only for one day. Why? Because lithism" in the spirit of the Stalinist bur- Opposition would be happy to learn of your — FROM THE PLATFORM OF H made its appearance too late, when the eaucracy. What is needed is actual sol- decision to join the International Left. THE COMMUNIST OPPOSITION Soviet power was already In existence, and idarity on the basic questions of revolu- With Communist Greetings, ADOPTED (CHICAGO) MAY tame into conflict with It. In this conflict, tionary strategy that has stood the test L. TROTSKY 20, 1929. the Constituent Assembly represented the of the past few years. Prinkipo, Aprill 22, 1930 THE MILITANT

door. After the abrupt attack of Schact Mn Cyerm agafnst Hilferding (December, 1929 )the LOVESTONE'S end of the coalition was only a matter of weeks.... * * * «AMERICANISM» The new bourgeois bloc (Bruning- e Menace of Fascism Schiele-Treviranus) is by its very nature Nowadays nobody with eyes in his he a transitional, regime. With its left foot can mistake the sorry role that Loves workers from the social democracy (o the and his faction are playing in the ComJMrtb BERLIN— it supports itself on the parliamentary re- Communist Party took place. gime with its right foot it rests on the ist movement. Years ago his opportunfcjf* For several weeks the new government Tricked by the social democracy, ic ideas could always find shelter uncfajl of the bourgeois bloc, the government! of ^^ ^ ^- Cominimigt Party's pomlcs open dictatorship. I f contrary to all pre- dictions, the resistance o£ the masses the protecting arm of Stalin's CominteiWI Elruning-Schiele-'J tvas oeeu ^ ^^ the bombastic phrasemongering today he must shiver in the rain of criS office. From the , it has placed it- he Wedding Con- against the regime of the bourgeois bloc of menacing dictator- should become too strong, the road to a icism. To illustrate this I will point OU| ship It sought a parliamentary majority S^eas or me ran*, s'ct". .„<«,„„» ~* „ new coalition would not be barred. The several things which occurred at a youtj but it) declared at the same time that if conscious workers sank into apathy and in- transition to such a regime as exists in meeting held by the Lovestone group lb| this majority were not forthcoming, it difference, Uens of thousands have been Thuringia—parliamentary in its externals the Grand Opera House last) week. would not resign—but would govern with- lured over into the camp of the fascists. and fascist in its essence—is quite within About fifteen people attended this meet- The anger, the discontent and even the the realm of possibilities. What is least ing. The audience was mainly composed pi revolutionary hatred of the social demo- will at the Lovestoneites, a few League members and curing the twenty-one months when cratic party haye grown the „ regime, democracy had power in its a stool pigeon of the Y. C. L. sent therj th.».ve u ------_»,„„,, but the time confidence in the parliamentary mask fall. The hands, it prepared the grovmd for a strong- leadershi nd slogang of the Communist to "report the League members foolisft legal and semi-legal possibilities are not enough to think they could attend any, er reaction; the blocttok pos- poUtical of its session of the i>loc which had been willed , . yet exhausted, the class struggle in Ger- meeting but their own. The reporter Of to it by the coalition—t o carry out in a line ln the immediate struggles, has waned. many has not yet taken on that form the evening was Will Herberg. He gave j| speedier and more Brutal fashion that The bourgeoisie is well aware of this many has not yet taen ™ a orm wc fairly accurate representation of the sit- which the social democracy has begun: the change in the outlook of the masses. To- cadvantage°mpels thse ofbourgeoisi parliamentarisme to renounc. e the uation in the Party. Any half-way edtt- day the bourgeoisie fears incomparably The traditional character of the present cated Communist can see the countless mi*, throttling of the working class. less than in 1928 the development of a regime reflects the profound crisis in which takes and false policies of the leadership it was evident to every revolutionary revolutionary movement against its domin- bourgeois democracy finds itself in Ger- and the impasse into which they have led Marxisarx t that the social democratic coalition ation. many. The crisis in all the bourgeois the C. I. But when he tried to analyze' could only play the role of preparing the The Bourgeoisie Dismisses the parties is the expression of the same phen- the caA.ses at the bottom of this crisis andj way. Nothing could be more false than Social Democracy omenon: but the crisis of bourgeois democ- to estimate the work and value of tu£ the conception that the official Communist That is why the preparatory role of racy itself is only the external expression Left Opposition he got himself into an aw- Party theoreticians defend nowadays after of the crisis of the capitalist social order. ful mess. His only attempt* to Ciscuss thi trying to rid themselves of the theory of the Social democracy has come to its. close; the bourgeoisie feel it can now The solution of this crisis will depend on questions the Opposition has raised was on social fascism. A leading article of the the further development of the class Htirug. the problem of Thermidor^ Firstly Ji!e International (No. 7) says among other reach its ends without the direct aid of the socialist party. The party was shown the tie in Germany. —K. L, drew an utterly false picture of no unity things that in the course of recent years of opinion among the forces of the Lett every government has marked "one step Opposition on this question. Some, he said, further in the direction of the fascist) de- believed that Thermidor was already a«- velopment of Germany" and that conse- complished, others that it was on its wa|> quently the "Muller government was ob- and still others didn't believe in it at all. viously as reactionary a government aa Communism and the Negro Problem The first view (that Thermidor is a*- those which preceded it." ready accomplished in the Soviet Union) The Militant welcomes membership Unite! This mechanical conception has nothing When the American Civil War occur- is hold by Urbahns, he maintained. Andi in common with Marxism and completely discussion on all the basic problems then, like a typically bankrupt politician] of the Communist movement. We do red, Marx was strongly for the Northern disregards the development of the class cause and supported Abraham Lincoln. He he attacked Ohis view as the one of the Op- struggle which is full of contradictions. not regard leading committees as the position. This he succeeded in doing, sincq. Why did the bourgeoisie, which called sole repositories of all the wisdom of saw that part of the American working class was still under chattel slavery. Their it doesn't take much brains to expose as the Socialist! party to the government after Marxism and Leninism, What is called erroneous a theory like this one. But he the' Negro problem especially is one color was not a factor. Today the whole the elections of 1928 so brutally dismiss American working claifts is under wage didn'd dare attack the official viewpoint ot its "socialist" domestics in 1930? that will bear a good deal o£ thorough study and discussion. The easiest line slavery and color is not a factor. ( Continued on Page 8 ) i The Communist Fart; and the left- The finest way in the world to play ward Movement of approach would be to repeat some glib formula. into the hands of the Southern bourgeoisie The Role of American Imperialism The bourgeois government) bloc suf- Discussion articles oh this or oth- is to talk about Negro Soviets. They will fered a mark defeat in 1928 in the Reichstag er questions of Communist theory and Immediately translate this into Negro doin- Every estimate of the present situation elections. The piratical tariff policy and strategy should be as brief and to the inauoe, irjfl "with this slogan they can musti proceed from the fact that the world the reactionary social policy, the brutal point as possible in view of our limited alienate the Southern whites "of the work- center of economic gravity has shifted to measures of capitalist rationalization had space. —Editors ing class. the United States. American imperialism ttevset . thuiec massema,i3«^us .in motion. About a million Philadelphia, Pa. Segregation even when apparently for now levies tribute from practically all th< and a half petty-btfurgeoisle, workers and the good of the Negro is wrong. capitalist countries of the world. This medium and poor peasants turned from the Editors, the Militant: Our policy should be to knit closely development which has risen to its height Right to the Left wing of the bourgeoisie, Some time ago 1 heard a member of together all workers, black and white, na- in the period after the world war, baa towards the social democracy, which in- the Communist Party, Ben Thomas, state tive and foreign. bound up the fate of American imperialism creased its vote from 7,881,000 to 9,151,000 la a lecture that the Negro should be given There is no physiological or biological with the economy of the whole world in an •votes. Half a •million workers abandoned autonomy, and that in such districts where inextricable form. No analysis of its fu- reformism and the open bourgeois camn. the Negro is in a majority, a Negro Soviet race hatred. Race prejudices are purely Republic should be set up. My reaction to social and economics I was raised in ture economic course, internally as well as to go to the Communist Party whosi thlg wag s(irongiy in Opposition. It seemed Washington, D. C. and Virginia. I know externally, can be made without a consid- increased from 2,700,000 to 3,260,000. pureiy mechanical that as kids we white and black children eration of its international position. years 1927 and 1928 witnessed an increas- to me u«« uus wo,B a VUm, ,,,0^,^ „ The effect of America's direct inter- ing activity of the masses. To stop the attempt to introduce European, African or associated freely and without prejudice. It Asiatic conditions into America. 1 am was only later, when we realized that the vention in European affairs after the war development to the Left and to bring con- ^ afrai,j of being nailed as an "exception- Negro had a lower position, lower even was the temporary, partial stabilization of fusion to the masses, to disintegrate their jgr when j state that the American Negro than our own as "Poor White Trash", that European capitalism. This stabilization oc, elan—that was the function of the coaliulon. pr<)Wem Jg an American problem and must we developed a superiority complex. White curred in direct connection with the defeat Today after nearly two years one must ^ 80ived on the basis of actual conditions and blacks in the South wouW mingle of the German proletariat! in 1923 and re- admit that the bourgeoisie has largely ati- jn America That it cannot be solved with freely if permitted. In fact they do in sulted in the consolidation of social dem- tained its object. Despite as reactionary ocracy for the time. In turn it enabled a policy as possible in nearly every field, any transplanted formula, such lowly circles as bootleggers*, pros- What is the situation here? Is the titutes, etc. where they feel that there is the United States to avoid the convulsions the social democracy succeeded in putting a Negro a National Minority, in the European nothing to lose. Only social advantages that would have affected it inevitably in the brake on the militancy of the masses. sense? Has he a culture, or a language draw the color line. Communists are not event of the development of the revolu- With the aid of the Young Plan it suc- that is different from the American people? snobs, our base is the workers, and on this tionary wave in Europe. ceeded in sowing illusions inside the pro- Most emphatically no! The American base we can and must build up a united The United States has expanded its letariat. And as the Communist Party is integrally a part of the American front of the earth's exploited. productive capacity which has brought did not know how to lead the masses into class and any attempt to In the South our Soviets must be built about a further contraction of markets fof struggle *tep by step, »or to organize gatg him jg absolutely wrong. The Com- up from the workers, black, white and mix- European capitalism and consequently a them by the revolutionary application or munist movement should bend every effort ed. If the official Party fosters such wrong contraction of the European market itself, the tactics of the united front, no real eradicate every tendency in that direc- ideas of Negro segregation we should fight The post-war chaos of Europe has made It struggle was developed against the Young it. impossible for the debtors of that! contin- Plan against the capitalist offensive, and What Negro needs is class cons- Summing up then let me state: ent to present a sufficiently consolidated the Left current of 1928 did noO develop ciou|S)negs not race consciousness. No national minorities exist in the united front to which they are inclined. further, no real mass desertion of the Bourgeois Negroes are themselves try- United States. Any efforts to transplant a The very strength and expansion of ing to build up race consciousness, shout- foreign culture, Negro, Jewish, Polish, Eur- American imperialism has laid the found- o ing for race interests. They desire that the opean or what not, should be vigorously ation for the most violent struggles la Negro should be segregated into separate combatted. There is one American work- Europe and in the colonial countries. Th« Spanish Left Organ Appears schools, in order that Negro daughters ing class, and it works only to the inter- European powers must fight among them- should have opportunities to become est of the Ruling Class when efforts are selves for a larger ration in world econ- The Militant is glad to report that the schoolteachers. They want Negroes to pat- made to differentiate between the woAers omy, and against the United States for the Spanish section of the International Left ronjze Negro doctors, dentists, merchants, Particularly the Negro has no separ- same reason. The pacifist effect which Opposition has just been able to establish bankers, etc... Why? For the particular ate interests. He is not a foreigner. He is American intervention had upon the Euro- organ of its own under the name of advancement of the Negro professions, etc. American for many generations. He has pean situation in the beginning is now be- "Against tlie Current". It is to begin as The Communist movement should avoid no national culture. Russians may be ing transformed by the process of devel- a semi-monthly and will aim to become a this pitfall. Every effort to segregate the interested in Russia, Poles in Poland, Jews opment into a revolutionizing effect. Amer- weekly. Negro should be fought. Negro girls should in Jerusalem, but the Negro is interested ican imperialism is now beginning to look The situation in Spain, with the pre- not teach Negro cvhildren, they should. in America. He is American. Garvey is for a solution of its own approaching In- vailing ferment t-mong the workers and when qualified as teachers teach any doing all he can to manufacture an arti- ternal convulsions at the expense of Eur- peasants following the end of the Primo school, no consideration of their race or ficial background for the Negro in Africa, ope, and primarily of Germany, and in- de Rivera regime is favorable. The Oppo- color should be given. Negro children Let us be careful to avoid such nonsense. -»»"«"creasedJ exploitatio««.-i~i*.»i.—n an--Jd imperialisi ..,.-xt raMi„..>_, sition has already made gratfying gains in should go to schools in the districts in Fraternally- . .. , on Latin America and China. the fight to win the masses for the revolu- which they live, there should be no Negro —K. M. WH1TTEN — FROM THE PLATFORM 01 tionary line against the Stalin faction schools. * I mean bootleggers in the Southern THE5 COMMUNIST OPPOSITtOM which has control of the Party appar- There should be no Negro labor unions. sense, who sold drinks out of a bott'le in a ADOPTED (CHICAGO) MAI atus Our warmest fraternal greetings to Workers should unite! Marx was not small way, not our modern capitalist "Al 20, 1929. our Spanish comrades. wrong when he said, Workers of all lands. Canon*" tvno THE MILITANT Saturday, June 14, 1930 n Open Letter to the Members of the C. P. S. U. (b) ( Concluded from the Last Issue ) A French proverb says that one must By L. D TROTSKY and sterile in the sphere of transitional know how to fall back sometimes in order demands. It defends the erroneous slo- youth the possibility of developing its own and practise of the "Workers and Pea- gan of "democratic dictatorship". It com- the better to leap. That is the condition initiative, of judging, ot discussing, of com- in which the leadership of (lie Soviet state, sants" Party (Stalin). bines the scholasticism of Bucharin with as well as the leadership o£ the Communist mitting mistakes and correcting them:—in The cowardly, half-way abandonment the empiricism of Stalin and gives a the- International finds itself at present. the absence of such pre-requisities there ot" this theory is not enough. It must be oretical elucidation of all the aberrations is the danger of a fatal rupture between pitilessly condemned as the worst example of Centrism. Both are driven by their own adven- the successive revolutionary generations. of political treachery which has compro- It is necessary to construct a program turism to the depths of an impasse. Plac- Above all, it is necessary to alter the mised for a long time the proletarian forces worthy of the theory of Marx and the rev- ing its "prestige" above bhe interests of policy of tiie Communist International in of Japan, India, Indonesia, and other olutionary school of Lenin, the world revolution, the Centrist bureau- the Kast. countries ot the East. * * * cracy draws ever more the noose around The organization of peasant guerilla With no less decision must there be a One cannot find a way out of the pre- the neck of the Party. In matters of tac- warfare in China while the workers' move- repudiation of the slogan of the "demo- sent contradictions without crises and tics, the first taslfis the following: to beat ment in the proletarian centres continues cratic dictatorship of the workers and pea- struggles. A favorable change in the rela- a retreat by abandoning the positions of to vegetate, is to throw dust in the eyes—it sants" which is only a reactionary cover tion ot forces on a world scale, that is to adventurism. The retreat is inevitable in is the sure road to the destruction of the for a policy of the Kuomintang kind, that say some striking success of the revolu- any ease. It must therefore be carried out Communist Party. is to say, for the hegemony and dictator- tion would constitute an important and as soon as possible and in the best pos- It is necessary to stop playing with the ship of the bourgeoisie in the national even decisive factor in the domestic affairs sible order. fire of adventurism. The Chinese Com- revolution. of the Soviet Union. But it is impossible Put an end to the "complete" collec- munist Party must be armed with the slo- The program of the. Communist Inter- to construct a policy on the expectation tivization replacing it with a careful sel- gans of revolutionary democracy to aid it national adopted at the Sixth Congress is of some miraculous salvation "in the short- ection based on a real freedom of self-de- in the mobilization of the great masses iu entirely eclectic. It gives an incorrect est possible interval". Certainly there will termination. city and country. conception of the world situation. It is be no scarcity of economic and revolu- Bring the Kolkhoz (the farm collectives) The weakness of the Hindu proletariat built up on a concoction of internationalism tionary crises in the coming period, espec- Into harmony with real resources. all a time when a profound revolutionary and of national-socialism. It gives a Men- ially in Europe and Asia. But this will not Put an end to the policy of merely ad- crisis is developing in the heart of an shevik characterization of the colonial rev- be enough to solve the problem. The de- ministrative abolition of the kulaks. To enormous colonial country is explained by olutions and of the role that! the liberal feats we suffered after the war taught us fcridle the exploiting tendencies of the ku- the long reign of the reactionary theory bourgeoisie plays in them. It is impotent that wiihout a party powerful and sure lak will remain a necessary policy yet for of itself, in full enjoyment oj the confidence many years. The fundamental policy with of the masses, victory is impossible. Well, regard to the kulak holdings must con- on this very decisive point, the balance alst in a rigid contractual system of co- Barred from Union Activity for «Trotskyism» of the post-Lenin period shows a marked deficit. ercion (i. e., a contract with the govern- Editor of the Militant: ment organizations obliging the kulak to Youngstown workers were honored by the That is why it is necessary to be able furnish certain products at fixed prices). Your issue of May 17 carried a brief presence of a combination organizer. He to foresee that the situation internally and was here to build up everything. The Put an end to the shock brigade me- article from comrade Plarinos, describing internationally heralds a coming period full the May Day demonstration in this city. Party, the T. U. U. L., the I. L. D. the of prolonged and grave difficulties whicb thods of collectivization. Re-evaluate the M. W. I. L. and what not. He spoke at question of the tempo of industrialization Brief though his article was, it was ade- will have their political repercussion. The quate to cause his rejection as a member the Public Square and the thing he suc- suppressed questions, the hidden dou'ots, In the light of experience taking into ac- ceeded most in doing was in keeping the count the necessity of raising the standard of the Metal Workers Industrial Leagrne; the heavy discontent of the masses will the League which ironically claims to be crowd moving. No one would stop to lis- come to the surface. The whole question, ot living of the masses. ten to him. Such organizers who cannot Frankly raise the question of the qual- interested in the organization of the iin- is to understand whether they will ex- organized. speak and do not know what they are try- plode tumultously .taking the Party by sur- ity of production, its importance being as ing to say do much more harm than good. great) for the consumer as for the pro- Plarinos, who has many years stand- prise or if the latter will be able to mtinter ducer. ing in the revolutionary movement, did not Barred from Union for Opposition Views sufficient forces in itself at the supreme Put an end to inflation by establishing participate in the May Day demonstration The Metal Workers Industrial League is moment to become a new Party (or rather a rigid financial discipline by means of for the purpose of seeing its faults. He supposed to be an organization of metal the old party again) in determining its cutting down exaggerated plans. went into it with revolutionary enthusiasm; workers Irrespective of their political role in regard to the laboring masses. The with the desire of doing his part to make Tlews, their race, creed or color. They key to the future is to be found in Tina Give up the "ideal" of a closed econ- alternative. omy. Work out a new variant of the it a success; and to challenge the Steel pretend to be extremely anxious to organize plans based on as extensive a collabora- Barons. But despite his fidelity and en- the unorganized, but it is obvious that they To effect'the retreat which has become tion as possible with regard to the world thusiasm he could not avoid seeing the are out to organize no one b'it the bona necessary, to renew its strategic ar.::cnal market. conspicuous blunders of the leadership. fide followers of Stalin. The application of without too great damage and without los- Supported on the growing unemploy- In his "May Day in Youngstown" ar- comrade Denis Plarinos has been rejected ing its sense of perspective—this is only ticle comrade Plarinos said, "Thousands because he sent the Militant a truthful given to a party that clearly undersUmds ment in a number of countries .develop an its goal and knows its strength. important international campaign having as of workers and business men gathered on synopsis of the May Day demonstration its basis concrete economic proposals in the streets to see our parade." He might in addition to the fact that he is a reader This demands a collective criticism ot the d'rectlion of economic collaboration have added that the only workers on hand of the Militant. So it seems that, readers the whole experience of the Party iu the that day were the unemployed. of the Daily Worker exclusively are eligible post-Lenin period. The fraud and lies of •with the Soviet Union. Organize an "self-criticism" must give place to iatornul offensive of the working masses under The "Mass Political Strike" to join the M. W. I. L. which pretends to be an organization of metal workers! Only democracy wiMiin the Party. A gener.il ox- this slogan, particularly of the unemploy- The party call for a "mass political timiiuifion of (lie general line—not in its ^d, against the social democratic govern- the faithful disciples of Stalin will be or- strike" was a complete failure. How could ganized, although these disciples do not application but in its direction—this Is ment in Germany and against, the "labor" it be otherwise? While the great major- t)ie way to commence. government in England. number more than one percent of the ity of the workers were unemployed and workers. It is quite safe to say that nine Only the Left* Oppoaition ',s in the lire- It is necessary to stop looking upon the were 'walking from place to place in search out of every ten of the mill workers have sent circumstances capable of condemning Communist International as an auxiliary ap- of anything they could find, they would be never heard of Stalin. and explaining fearlessly all that is going paratus for the struggle against the dan- willing to work under almost any condi- The great majority of mill workers who on in the country and the Paity to the gers of intervention. It is a question no tions, just for "coffee and—". The workers extent that it is the result of the whole longer of occasional demonstrations who had a job looked upon themselves as read any newspeper at all read the capit- preceding course of developments. As long against war but of a struggle against im- the favored recipients, as the chosen child- alist sheets. They do not read them on account of their editorial policy or polit- as this has not been understood it js of perialism, for the world revolution. It is ren of their particular deity. While it is no avail to talk of some "general lino" — necessary to develop a real struggle in quite true that the great majority ot the ical views. They read them for the latest whatever that is. news of baseball .football .horse-racing, the capitalist countries to win the masses mill workers, employed and unemployed, At the present moment the Left Op- taking into account the real state of the are sore at the bosses and hostile at the etc. But, yet they read the capitalist papers position is more than ever a nee ssit? for economic and political processes in each Company, yet few know anything of the and not the Dally Worker. Are they to be ignored and pushed off the map by the her- the Party. The crimes of the Stalinist Country. international revolutionary movement and apparatus must .be put an end to and t'he An end must be put to the falsifica- still less of the Third International. esy-hunting M. W. I. L.? Are they not to be organized to fight the steel barons un- Opposition returned to its rights within the tion of facts consisting in the (verbal) In fact, I don't think the mill work- Party. This we will onoo more say to the transformation of specific economic con- ers who have a job would respond to any less they are born again or unless they, Sixteeenth Congress. ' wake up some morning and by some cable- flicts or unimportant demonstrations into strike call at the present time. But if The mission of the Opposition at tha po-called revolutionary utriiggles. they were called on to organize with the gram magic find themselves ardent admirers of Stalin and diligent students of the Third present time can be formulated as follows: Stop the fabrication of statistical data intention of ultimately striking for bet- Period? to increase tenfold its efforts to aid tha In tine service of pre-establshed schemes. ter conditions, higher wages and so forth, Party despite all obstacles to overcome I)rive out Ignominlously all "tailendism" they might at least Understand it. Biut the It is easy to foresee the end of this the profound crisis which is manifesting the lying and deception of the masses. call for a "mass political strike" of un- so-called Metal Workers Industrial League. itself Internally, before there should de- Give up the scholasticism of the "third organized workers during an Industrial de- Its sectarianism will choke it, lead H to velop in all its amplitude the crisis of tha period"! pression is of course beyond the compre- decay and finally to the scrap heap of ob- revolution. Put an end to the adventurist policy hension of these non-class conscious work- livion, unless itf is taken over by the mil- Just as in the years of the Imperialist! ot "red days"! ers. It is easy enough to see why the mill itant workers who will flght the steel slaughter little uncompromising groups and Condemn the theory of "social-fascism" workers who had jobs paid no attention to barons by forming a united front of all even isolated revolutionary individuals per- which renders the greatest services to the the call for a mass political strike. The steel workers irrespective of their polit- soniaed in themselves alone proletarian social democracy! call reached deaf ears as any one with any ical views or of what newspaper they read. internationalism, so the Left Opposition, Return to the Leninist policy of the sense might easily anticipate. The mill workers can be organized on small in numbers and persecuted, is the united front! The slogan of a mass political strike an industrial basis only. But they cannot! guardian of the spirit of the revolutionary The loss of influence over the youth at this time and place is like sowing seed be drawn into an organization which party. Neither the oppression of rulers nor IB one of the most menacing symptoms of on barren rocks. The seed not only will spends its time talking of the Russian sit- the treachery of the feeble and exhausted, th» abyss which is opening up before the not grow but it will die. This serious slo- uation, the Third Period, etc. These work- will shake us *»f our determination. Communist International and the masses. gan has been abused so much by the phrase- ers believe iu organizing to fight the steel Against bureaucratism! Against op- Never yet has bitter, drled-up, self- mongers and half-baked intellectuals who barons. Asking them to fight the battles portunism! Against adventurism! interested and conceited bureaucratism been look on themselves as the foi ntains of of Stalin is sheer folly. For the October Revolution! able to find its way into the hearts of the working class knowledge that It has be- Organization will yet come bu(t not Por the regeneration of the Russian younger generations. What is needed is come meaningless. No one, not even those through our present Communist leadership Communist Party and the Communist Inter- •tot commandments of officialdom but sen- who write to, any longer take it seriously. which insists on substituting v.'ishes for national on the basis of Leninism! Hive and tactful leadership on the part But of course this is the "Third Period" facts and which' believes the rank and file For the International Proletarian Rev- r the Party. so we cannot be surprised at anything. are to be merely drilled by tha Party bur- olution! One must leave to the proletarian For quite some time this year the eaawacy. —CHARLIE BRYNR Prinkipo, March 23, 1930, — UD.TROTSKY Saturday, June 14, 1930. E MILITANT

cipation in the Trotsky discussion then L f mLm DeWitt, Browder and Gold would be nothing really lost. The Nei» ItS V.ntlCS on Trolly', Autobiography Leader will say it. for them—and say Ji «MYLIFE»- .first. The S.l'..S1alinist United Front To a revolutionary all activity is a By James P. Cannon Quotations from these reviews, after The fundamental similarity of tie thre« form of struggle and every instrument is DeWitt's, would weigh this article down reviews mentioned has its own meaning for a weapon. Cooped up in Constantinople ique in literature of this kind. But, even with an unavoidable burden of repetition those who look for the political content In through the amicable cooperation o£ Sta- so, the book remains an autobiography, not The soul of DeWitt is marching on in them. literary polemics. It is auite possible lin and Kemal Pasha—"patiently, waiting a history. It does noti merely describe the The words of "The Chatter Box" leap from thati many will fail to see any significant* for what is to follow''—Trotsky writes his historic events but relates also the part the pages of the New Masses like armed in this united front and ask: "Are peoplt memoirs, and they become a bombshell the author played in them. And this is the men from ambush. not allowed to have the same opinions one* whose explosion resounds throughout the first point of DeWitt's complaint. Browder, like DeWitti estimates the his- in a while?" And to this we can answer world. "There is so much of Leon Trotsky in toric Party struggle as a contest for per- It is not only allowed; it is unavoidable "My Life" is a literary sensation. The those six hundred pages of print and phrase sonal position and dismisses Trotsky's pre- when they approach questions from tht "critics" are amazed at the brilliance of that one receives only a hazy outline of the tentious in the same cavalier fashion. same essential standpoint. Its literary execution. The skillful ar- Russian episode." Again: "I'm terribly "The theme of the book is how Trotsky The common ground on the matter ai rangement of words, in their conception, is sorry to have allowed so much animus to happened to become subordinated to Len- issue of the social democratic philistinc- an art which belongs exclusively to those creep into a review of a book. E who have nothing to say. The legend that has left me so little of impersonal material when Lenin died; and how the "degen- demonstrates how far the official Commun- wisdom expresses itself through dullness to judge, and so much of himself, that no erate" leadership of the Communist move- ist Party has departed from the Marxist has a wide "popularity but that i'act does other procedure is possible." Well, that's ment entered into a conspiracy to despoil method of analysis—the method whicl not give it any real value. Why should too bad. But how could it be helped? Trotsky of his inheritance. Around this seeks the underlying social explanation o those who devote themselves to the strug- As Trotsky himself remarked: "Nobody rather trite detective story scheme the book historic event and which sees persons— gle for ideas not learn the art of present- has yet succeeded in writing an autobiog- is built up." Needless to say the shrewd even the greatest as representatives of so- ing them effectively? Trotsky has done raphy without writing about himself." Browder is not fooled by this dodge about cial forces. this to a superlative degree and has there- A big section of the book is devoted to 'political issues" at the botltom of the We Oppositionists who fight under the by added to his power and stature as a the Party struggle that began with Lenin's contest and like DeWitt refuses to be lured banner of Marxism in the International an revolutionary politician. His book, besides fatal illness. The account is a political into a discussion of these extraneous ques- often reproached with merely being ad- being a literary masterpiece is a mighty analysis which shows thati it was not as tions. "I, Trotsky, had power," he says, herents of Trotsky in a personal struggle. weapon in the political struggle. This, the philistines think, simply a struggle of "This was taken away from me by a conspir- But it is precisely the Oppositionists wh< in fact, is its essence. , persons for power. "The struggle- of the acy of the degenerate leadership of the protest against such an interpretation 01 Political Autobiography epigones for power, as I shall t!ry to prove, Party headed by Stalin." And from this the cleavage in the Party. The struggle was not merely a struggle of personalities; follows 'logically his pontifical admonition: of the Opposition against the reaction ir "In these pages," says the author, "I it represented a new political chapter—the "The dictatorship of the proletariat can have continue the struggle to which my whole reaction against October, and the prepar- the Soviet Unioni is no more a mere fighi life is devoted. Describing, I also charac- no more dangerous or insidious enemy of persons for power than was the strug- tion of the Thermidor." On this thesis than a leader inside its apparatus who gle of the Bolsheviks against Kerensky. terize and evaluate; narrating, I also de- Trotsky bases his account of the Party t-hinks in terms of personal power." fend myself, and more often attack." And struggle; but it is all lost on DeWitt. In each case the philistines and reaction- again: "This is a boon of polemics. It re- Browder Joins the Freudians aries saw only the persons fighting for flects the dynamics of that social life which He sees, or pretends to see, only the For Browder, as for his confrere of the place, while the Marxi'sts sought to explalr is built entirely on .conrtadictions." So, personal side of the struggle and takes New Leader, there is too much Trotsky in the causal social factors and their potentW in the introduction, the author oetn the Trotsky to task for failing to play the Trotsky's book about his life, and the two manifestations. keynote for his work. That he has succeed- game like a good sport. The conductor of reviewers meet again in protest against: Trotsky applies this scientific method ed in his design is attested by the liood of "The Chatter Box" chides the organizer of his "underestimation of the working class". the Revolution and the Red Army: When to his entire book about all stages of tht comment which the book has called forth— "As a. matter of fact"—we are quoting Russian revolution up to the present mo- comment which shows that his politcftl it came to stepping down from your pet Browder now — "it is almost impossible ment. The failure of DeWitt, Browder anf blows have hit their mark. theories, and playing along with your po- to find any hint of the existence o£ the Gold to grasp this issue and meet it con- litical comrades on a 'give and take' basis working class in this book. HI exists only The positive political qualities of Trot- you flopped miserably. Either they would demns their interpretations to absolute sky's memoirs have already been evaluated to provide a dark background which throws worthlessness. They miss the point entire. do as you ordered, or thf-y were betraying into higher relief the brilliant exploits of in the Militant, Since then a number of the revolution. ly and throw no light on the real questions hostile reviews have appeared in other Trotsky." (it issue. col urns. A review of these reviews should "This business of being- as infallible What is loi't of Trotsky after these as God is so stupid." The worker who seeks an understand- enable us to bring out more sharply and withering Waste? Putting an upstart in ing of these questions must turn from th< clearly the essential character of the auto- One might think that DeWitt would his place is what, we call it. And it is to stop at this and call it a day. But the critics of Trotsky's book to the book itself biography, since a V00^' lilse a fian, is be hoped that he will stay there when he They will find it there. al?o to be Judged by the enemies it has Trotsky-killer has tasted blood and press- gets the following profound diagnosis of jiiado. es on remorselessly. "I, for one wouldn't the whole t rouble. Trot»;ky refers tlo swap a regiment of strutting Trotskys for Marx and tries to hinge his case on the World Union Membership An far as the bourgeois writers are one Stalin." There's another vote to make Marxian method of social analysis. Brow- concerned it suffices to say 'iat not one it still more ".unanimous". He must have der declines to follow him into this field, of them, to our knowledge, has failed to thought he was writing a Party thesis. Declines understand that. Trotsky's standpoint is being too smart, as they say in the West, to He continues: "Calling all of us names, and play another man's game. lirowder aj>- AMSTERDAM—(FP)—Official .statistic! what it has always been . The millions of then spitting so viciously at Stalin con- •words that have been written to prove that ]ienls to Freud, and the result is fatal—for show the trade union membership in 76 vinces us beyond further argument that Marx as well as for Trotsky. Trotsky has countries as of Dec. 3T, 1927 and 1928, as he has become a renegade to the revolu- your present fall from grace is the direct tion and an ally of the bourgeoisie have a "complex" says the reviewer—Erowder, respectively 46,187,060, and 44,180,525. This result! of the poetic judgement.. .wherein not DeWitt. Lenin once gave him a pair great loss in one year is due to the collapse all been wasted as far as theV.e same great pride cometh before a fall.'' bourgeoisie are concerned. For them, now, of shoes which hurt his feet so badly that of the huge figures reporded from Asia at Trotsky might receive a grace it: he he recalls the incident in the book after the height of the Chinese revolution. For as before, Trotsky is the symbol and rep- would be a biti 'umble under his adversities, resentative of the October revolution, and, many years. And what does that prove? 1927 Asia reported 3,697,000 trade unionists, but his stubborn pride shuts out, even that. It proves everything. Says Browder: "Let while in 1928 it: reported only 724,194. insofar as they depart from the purely And he doesn't understand the workers literary side of his book and express op- each amateur Freudian give his own an- Chiang Kai-Shek had crushed in blood the either! "There is an aristocracy about alysis of this interesting paragraph. Our Chinese trade union movement which inions on the Party struggle, their •'sym- your carriage," says DeWitt, "throughout pathies'' are invariably given to the "prac- own analysis is that Trotsky's ruling idea, sprung up at the triumph of the revolu- the adventure which belies your oft-quoted from the time he met Lenin, was connected tion in 1927. tical" Stalin as against the " visionary" love for the proletariat. There is so little Trotsky. This simple fact speaks volumes. in one way or another with occupying Len- Europe reports at the end of 1927 a about the workers in your narrative. All in's shoes." Whati mud could be clearer? total of 33,936,784 trade unionists, while a The Social Democrats you are taken up with is your theoretical Mike "Arrives" ye-r later its total had risen to 35,392,081. tf we turn to the social democratic paragraphing in this radical journal and America confessed that while its 1927 to- that." And so on and so forth. We mustl After all this it might be well to let press we meet the same phenomenon. the matter rest. But the review of Mike tal was 7,416, 491, its 1928 total was only * "Trotskyism" has more than once been leave DeWitt here while we try to catch up 6,947,296. Australia rose from 99,652 to with his line of argument in other columns. Gold remains, and who can ignore him? labelled a "social democratic deviation" in Mike has "arrived", so to speak, and suc- 1,018,29 Africa fell from 144,33 to 90,- solemn official documents of the Comintern. The Stalinists cess has made him bold. He thinks he can - 497. But with a strange perversity these people The Stalinists had to take notice of get) away with anything—even plagiarism. Trade unionism in the United States also fail to catch the point. The New the book in question in order to bury once There has to be some honor, among writers showed an increase, but in Mexico and Leader's review of "My Life" is no less again the doctrine that has died so many as well as among thieves, and DeWitt has other Latin-American countries a loss was hostile than those of the Stalin press, and deaths at their hands. And they have done a just ground to complain at the way Gold registered. European countries making —what is especially noteworthy—its bitter the job this time with characteristic bril- has stolen his stuff on Trotsky and has gains in that year —1928 — were Austria, criticisms reveal such an identity of con- liance choosing for the medium, the New passed it off as his own. Bulgaria, Czechoslovokia, Denmark, Fin- tent with the Stalinisti reviews that one Masses. An example: "One point that struck land, Italy, Latvia Luxemburg, Memel, Nor- could hardly distinguish between them if Why the New Masses of all places and me in Trotsky's autobiography. What Luci- way Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, they were printed side by side in the same all things? The explanation is simple. fernian pride in every line!.. .Trotsky is and Yugoslavia. . Notable losses occurred journal, with the names of the authors Up till now the New Masses confined it- too convinced that he is a great man... in Greece, Great Britain, Lithuania, Po- omitted. self in the war against "Trotskyism" to the But there are no supermen. All men are land and Portugual and less losses, in Bel- Let us first consider the review in the modest role of keeping quiet, suppressing fallible," etc. That's clever, but DeWitti gium, Esthonia, Hungary, Ireland, France New Leader for May 10th by S. A. DeWitt. all material on the question and refusing said it first. Why not give him credit? and Rumania. The reviewer is somewhat of a "literary" paid advertisements for our publications. Another example: "Trotsky writes of man himself and the conductor of "The This course was predicated on the theory the revolution as a chess player might, or Chatter Box". One might think that Trot- that it was a "political" matter; and the a general." And—believe it or nott—"He sky has suffered enough of misfortune and New Masses is a hot-house for the cultiv- has no feeling for the pathos, the poetry »MY LIFE" tribulation. But no, another cruel disap- ation of that flower of the ages: the pro- and human beauty of the proletarian All readers 01 the Militant: and their pointment awaits him: "comrade" DeWitt letarian writer who has nothing to say masses." This is more literary larceny friends, who desire to get their copy ol disapproves of Trotsky and his book, too. about politics. against which DeWitt may rightly protesti. of Leon Trotsky, "My Life", should make It He says so straight out with all the heavy But "My Life", it seems, is a "literary'' These quotations are the core of Gold's a point to order the book direct«y through solemnity of a man who knows the weight! product, and that makes it duck soup for review, and they are lifted bodily, almost the Militant. Shipment will be made the and import of his words. the New Masses, which, as everybody literally, from "The Chatter Box". This day the order is received, and the cost ot Trotsky's autobiography is a masterful knows, is literary at all costs. Conse- thing can't go on. For the good of the the book, five dollars, ($5.00), covers the exposition of the historic process in which quently we have in the June number not profession, literary ethics must be observed postage charge. Send your order, together individuals are playing their parts. His one review but two, and both of them from and swiping the other fellow's stuff must with money order or cash to own activities are related and subordin- eminent literati—Earl Browder and Mike must be cut out. Even if such a ruling would THE MILITANT ated to it with an objectivity that is un- Gold. debar the New Masses from further parti- 25 Third Avenue, New York, N. Y. Kl

The Misery of India's Communist Youth and the Left Opposition BIGGER AND Of the organizations in the Communist Youth membership into its ranks. The Youthful Toilers International, none have suffered and con- young workers of Austria remain under so- BETTER WARS tinue to suffer such mangling as the Young cial democratic influence while the Com- It would be ridiculous to expect from Thursday, May 24, a Rochester aud- Communist International. With a splen- munist influence is almost nil. The Amer- ience seated themselves in a vaudeville the British (and their junior partners, the did background—the struggle of the Youth ican League continues to remain at a stat- native) ruling classes that have made of house to be treated to an unexpected view against the war in unison and under the ic membership of between 1,000 and 1,500 of the latest scientific marvel, television—* India a huge welter of poverty, pestilence, political guidance of the Bolsheviks, the members. Here the fruits of the Love- superstition and ignorance anything but the combination of radio and vision. Russian Revolution, and the splendid lead- stone leadership and the present incom- One mile away, in the laboratories of the most callous treatment of the young ership of comrades Lenin and Trotsky dur- petent, pretentious and impotent leader- the General Electric Company, artists sang toilers in field and factory. But even we, ing the early days of the organization of ship of Steuben, Green and Harvey have and spoke, a director led the orchestra none too pampered by Hooverian proper- the Communist International—the Y. C. I. made matters only worse. (Of the Amer- which was in the theatre, all clearly visible ity were deeply shocked to read of the ter- was destined to enjoy a healthy growth ican League more will be said in other ar- on the screen. rible conditions the young workers and and activity. ticles.) And so on ad infinitum. The next morning every thinking per- peasants are forced to live and work under. Education and participation in mass The invention of the spurious" third son was deeply thrilled as he read the Speaking generally, an idea can be activity—these were the watchwords of the period" theory and the rise of adventurism account. This feeling, however, turned into gained by noting the fact that infant mor- Youth Leagues. Progress was inevitable. in political policy has only made matters one of abhorrence when he or she read the ality reaches the rate of 206 per thousand The Leagues everywhere enjoyed consider- worse. It has added greatly to the already statement of the developer of the television, all over the peninsula as compared with able growth. They embodied a revolu- achieved sectarianism and isolation. The Mr. W. E. Alexandersson. 91 in the United Kingdom. In the textile tionary enthusiasm and energy that gave present policies of the Y. C. I. and its Mr. Alexandersson spoke of the latest city of Bombay this reaches the sickening rise to splendid activity. The education Leagues only promise to perfect this con- discovery as being "inspiring". Of the total of 667 on the average and 828 in the in Communism and the participation in the dition. uses to which this new invention could, workers centers. Behind these figures can class struggles prepared hundreds and thou- This situation in the Youth movement be put, he said: be glimpsed the terrible poverty, poor sands of young revolutionaries for future "Or what will this mean in the future housing and poor food that grips the na- is but a reflection of the situation in the leadership in the ranks of the Party, Communist International. The past seven when a staff officer can see the enemy tion, the five acres of land that compromise This ascent however, in the ranks of through the television eyes of his scouting the average holding, causing the terrible years history of the Comintern is mirrored the Young Communist International was in the Leagues, though at times even more plane or when they can send a bombing holocausts that sweep the country in the halted abruptly. In preparation of the plane without a man on board which can shape of epidemics and pestilence*. grotesque and more accentuated. The so- struggle against the Russian Opposition lution of the present crisis in the Inter- see the target and be steered by radio up to The margin between bare existence under the leadership of comrades Trotsky, the moment) it hits?" and non-existence is so slight that the national Youth movement can come about Rakovsky, etc., the Stalinist bureaucracy only through a solution of the problems You question, Mr. Alexandersson, what child, when barely able to balance itself aimed heavy fire against the Youth Inter- it means. Let us tell you: must go into the field to work. School is facing the Communist International. The national, The Youth International was struggle of the Opposition against the pre- It means that the next war (in the out of the question even if such facilities nu^le a mere appendage to the Right - offing in spite of, or more trutlu'ully, be- were present. The British Empire, that sent revisionism, adventurism and oppor- Center bloc. Made to think that the youth tunism alone will solve this crisis. A re- cause of, your master class's "peace" and carrier of enlightenment, does not deem it alone were the leaders in the struggle for "disarmament" conferences) -vill make of necessary to spend more than 11 pence per surgence and reeducation is necessary— correct political lines in the ranks of the on the basis of a correct political program. the last war child's play; that where young head in India for education (local, district, revolutionary movement, the theory of workers and farmers were killed singly now national and from the empire) as against That program is the platform of the Op- "vanguardism" once again made its way position. Participation in the ranks of the they will be slaughtered by the droves for the two pounds spent in the British Isles in the Youth International. From this the- the bosses' greater profits. It means that which has none too a high a standard. Opposition and common struggle together ory grew a negative attitude toward the with the Party comrades is an imperative all your vaunting of scientific progress is When Prince Albert Victor (the royal education of the Youth and their partic- task of the Youth. The bureaucratic Stal- a terrible taunt; it means that capitalism gentleman on the tins of tobacco) who was ipation in mass activity. In place of a inist leadership cannot bring about a rev- is rapidly approaching its doom—either the grandson of Queen Victoria visMted training for the future, the international italiizing of the International Youth move- barbarism or Communism:either capital- Pooua in 1882, the following doggerel leagues entered a stage of heated particip- ment. That task belongs to tho Opposition. ism will scientifically poison, gas, drown, greeted him: ation in "high politics" and into an un- In the solution of the present crisis in the tear and otherwise efficiently kill the toilers "Tell grandma we are a happy nation, precedented period of factionalism. There Communist movement the Youth will play and drag society back into the abyss ot But 19 crore* are without education." developed in the ranks of the youth cynic- no little role. —ALBERT GLOTZER barbarism or the proletariat! wili fUeze ism for the elementary tasks of organiza- power and society will advance into the A crore is 10,000,000. tion. next stage, Communism, where man's wis- Beginning with the period of 1923-24 a dom will not be used to discover more Of the 269 millions in India today but state of passivity, opportunism and stag- Lovestone's « Americanism » 22 million know an alphabet. The huge "rationalized" methods of killing each nation set in. Bureaucratic direction dis- Continued from Page 5 other ,but to provide more leisure, more profits, the great taxation, the usury is placed the education of the Youth. Mass of the better things of life to the masses. returnd in no form whatever-to the masses activity was shunted for an accelerated the Opposition held by all its adherents That is what it means! of India. condition of factionalism. The scandalous fro Russia to America. That the danger Capitalism is here shown in its stark, If the conditions of the ryots (pea- maltreatment of the Young Communist In- of the Thermidor is being augmented in the persecution, exiling and shooting of hideous reality. Its path of glory leads eants) are bad, they are infinitely above ternational left horrible gaps in its ranks. but to its grave. And that path is rapidly those of the factory workers. In 1926 there The Russian League alone withstood the Oppositionists, in the breaking of the al- nearing its end. Every such new discov- •were 1,500,00 factory workers of whom heavy decline of its organization. liance between the workers and peasants ery but adds velocity to this journey. 250 were women and 70,000 are children In Germany the social democratic and because of adventurist policies in indus- Mr. Alexandersson is the guest of the below 15 years of age. (These figures are Reformist youth gained heavily at the ex- trialization and collectivization; in the U. S. Navy on the airplane carrier, Sara- » factory popuation of 2,650,000 with the pense of the Young Communist League. In growing of the power of the Kulak and the toga, bound for Panama, to experiment percentage of women and children doubt- France the League lost 12,000 members and Nepmen due to Stalin's zigzag policies; in with the pilotless plane, less holding their own if not actually gain, has today a membership of only 3,000. The the ominous growth of the Thermidorian ing.) opportunist policy of the Right-Centrist) bureaucrcy in the Party and the govern- Textile is the chief industry in India, leadership was not without its effect on the ment—only a Herberg can deny while he recall these trifles before he terms us in- Nowhere has King Cotton been a benevo- British League. There with the splendid shuts his eyes and shouts "don't talk to u* significant to debate with. lent monarch; his history is one of blood, situation caused through the split in the about Socialism in one country, we want Evading Questions of Principle particularly ot women and children whe- Guild of Youth (Social Democratic) and to hear about American questions." But just like tha whole Loveslone ther in England in 1844, in Gastonia or in the General Strike, the League numbers Covering Lovestone's Misdeeds crew, no sooner does Herberg say this than, India from 1919 on. only a few hundred (even Bulky Bill Rust The most interesting part of the meet- he starts to retract it. Well, the reason Read the section of Marx's Capital deal- cannot count more) . In Sweden the Right ing was Herberg's answer to the question they didn't want to debate, according to Ing with conditions in the spinning mills wing split carried more than half of the of Lovestone's use of underworld tactics Herberg is because the questions we "aise darken the picture and an idea is gleaned in the fight against the Left Opposition (Socialism in One Country, Chinese Rev- »£ the conditions of the mill cities of India seems hardly likely—the conditions in the »nd the challenge to debate with us on volution Anglo-Russian Committee, etc.)] «oday. fundamental questions. Complacently Her- "hold no interest for the American work- British-owned mills challenge worsening. ers". When Lovestone was in good graces There is a total of 374,380 workers in In the jute mills of Calcutta and Ben- berg repudiated the, violence perpetrated against the Opposition by the Lovestone with Stalin, when he ran the Daily Worker, the cotton industry of India of whom 70,000 gal, where most of the Jute in the world when we had no press, before we could are women and over 15 thousand are child- is produced the average wage for children group with the naive remark "at that time is 9 pence per day. In 319,000 workers in we were under Stalinist influence". Even print any of the suppressed literature, then flen. it was time to scatter scandal, lies and. Wages in th« Cotton Industry by Days 76 jute mills investigated 50,000 were wo- if any weight could be attached to this remark, Lovestone will have to explain calufnies about us. Now, when we are in Adult* men an.I 29,000 children. a position to reply to his lies and expose Rupee Anna Pies* And so it is in the entire country. On the away their burglary of the Party office plantations of Assam hundreds of thou- and his own tacit silence while Blum- his opportunism, Lovestone hides himself Abmedabad 150 in a dark corner and fearfully cries out, Bombay 1. 5 6 sands of farm laborers, entire families in- kin was shot and thousands of Opposition- ists are criminally persecuted and exiled "The American workers are not interested Sholapur 15 11 cluding babes toil for a few pence per day. in the Chinese Revolution". Whom does Ot'her Centers 1 1 8 Fabled spices of India! to Siberia, We are still waiting for Love- Women and children even dig coal in stone to raise a voice against the exiling this remind us of? Haven't we heard some- Big Lads and Children India, bringing coal to the surface in bas- of L. D. Trotsky. where before this same alibi about the Ahmedabad 11 * kets—human beings are cheaper than hoist- American workers not being interested itt Bombay 11 1 Not less demagogic and cowardly was fundamental problems but in more imme- ing machinery.. Of the 250,000 miners, 9 Herberg's reply tc the challenge of a de- Sholapur 9 1 thousand are women and a similar num- diate and more pressing questions. Doesn't Other Centers 8 11 bate on fundamental issues. No! Herberg the S. P. carefully avoid the questions ot ber children. won't debate with us because,lst, we are too As for social legislation for chilireii internaWonaliffai, the Proletarian DictErt- small; secondly because the questions we orship, etc. with jmrtj such platitudes? *A rupee is about 32,4 cents. An anna and youth, the little that has been forced want to debate about don't interest the Is one-sixteenth of a rupee or 2 cents and through is flagrantly disregarded. Twelve But the Opposition is not afraid to de- American workers. The great Lovestone, bate with Lovestone on American ques- a pies is one-twelfth of an anna or about years is the minimum age at which child- the overwhelming "majority" of the Anier- 'one-sixth of a cent. ren are permitted to work in factories em- tions; not afraid to show Lovestone, Her- can Partly refuses to debate with us be- berg and Co. how the question of social- These wages allow the workers a diet ploying more than 10 workers and us- cause we are too insignificant. Only yes- bn par with that of a Bombay criminal ing motive power. Between the age of 12 ism in one country once helped Lovestone tterday Lovestone strained every muscles to get control of the American party and re- prisoner, a chawl (tenement room) each and 15 half time is allowed or 30 hours prove to a recalcitrant minority that "Trot- Chawl containing on the average 4 persons. per week. duce it to 7,000 and how this question has skyism' w'as the main danger in the Amer- brought the Partly to its disastrous state It is said that conditions in the mills A far different side of the story is ican Party . Not quite so distant as that .owned by native cipitalists are worse thau the profits of 200 and 300%. It was a bad today and how it will help b-ing worse Lovestone shouted to the wide world that results even with Lovestone's kind in pow- Itt those owned by the Britishers. (Al- year when only 125% was secured on the Ideas of "Trotskyism" has captured the <*«