Socialist Appeal World Congress Official Weekly Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International
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In Two Sections See Section 2 ior Documents of Section 1 Socialist Appeal World Congress Official Weekly Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International VOt. II—No. 46 Saturday, October 22, 1938 Five Cents per Copy WORLD CONGRESS FOUNDS FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Congress Climaxes Thirty Delegates From Eleven 15 Years’ Struggle Countries Raise New Banner Fourth International Emerges From Fight Against Degeneration in the New International Created in Midst of European War Third International Crisis Gives Voice to Revolutionary By MAX SHACHTMAN diga, also solldarized itself sub Opposition to Imperialist W ar stantially with the Russian Op Just as the main body of the position, and met the usual fate Communist International came at the hands of the Kremlin ma out of the Second International, chine. Virtually the entire party YOUTH INTERNATIONAL FORMED so the roots of the Fourth Inter leadership in Belgium was arbit national are to be traced to the rarily ousted for the same reason. beginnings of the crisis In the The same occurred in varying de The Fourth International has been founded. T h ird . grees In all the parties of the Fifteen years have elapsed Meeting in the midst of the threatening war crisis in Europe, 30 delegates from International. Blnce the movement now organ eleven countries proclaimed the new W orld Party of the Socialist Revolution. A ized under the banner of the Subsequent Struggles Youth International was simultaneously created. Fourth International first took In the course of the inner The delegates represented organizations in the United States, France, Great B rit shape. It arose in the form of the struggle which followed in the Opposition in the Russian Com International, centering mainly ain, Germany, the Soviet Union, Italy, Latin America, Poland, Belgium, Holland, munist Party, variously called the around the question of the cap and Greece. "Moscow” or "1923” or "Trotsky itulation of the Stalinists to the ist” Opposition. Uniting the best British labor Bureaucracy, cul I.nable to send dele->tes be.ause of conditions of distance, illegality, and o th e r elements of the Old Guard and minating in the fiasco of the 1926 adverse factors, were organizations affiliated to the Fourth International in S paift, of the youth of the Party, and led General Strike and the notorious Czechoslovakia. Austria, Indo-China, China, French Morocco, the Union of South by Leon Trotsky, it was the first Anglo-Russian Trade Union U- to sound the alarm against the nity Committee; of the Chinese Africa, Canada, a number of Latin American countries, Australia, New Z ealand, growing menace of degeneration Revolution, in which Stalin re Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Palestine, Rumania, and several other countries. These in the ruling party and the revo duced the communist, the work organizations had already signified in advance their adherence to the new banner. lution itself. ing class and peasant m ove The world congress that raised the new internationalist banner met in s tric te s t Against Bureaucratism ments to so many serfs of the perfidious national bourgeoisie; illegality "somewhere in Switzerland” on September 3, 1938. Because of the e xtrem ely Significantly enough, the first of the domestic policy of the blows dealt the ruling clique by difficult conditions engendered by the war crisis, observers elected to the Congress Soviet Union, which brought the the Opposition centered around France and country to the brink of catas fb y the Workers and Peasants Socialist Party of the struggle against bureaucrat trophe by favoring the well-to-do the P.O.U.M. of Spain were unable to attend the aettud ism and for party and proletarian kulak and the labor aristocrat as NINE COUNTRIES democracy. These questions were, sessions of the Congress. A special commission, m et la te r against aj~poMey, advocated by however, inseparably'"associated,' the Opposition, of a broad indus with representatives of the former organization. in the views of the Opposition, REPRESENTED AT trialization plan and the collect with the questions of the rhythm N o conference o f revolutionists ever met^ under cir ivization of agriculture; and of industrialization of the coun cumstances more tense and ominous or faced tasks o f above all, of the generalized the try and the relationships to the YOUTH CONGRESS oretical expression of Stalinist re such supreme historical gravity than did this one. Soviet peasantry, questions which action contained in its national were to play such an overwhelm More than five years have passed since the nucleus at istic concept of "socialism in a Delegates Gather ingly decisive part in the further single country"—the original work for the reconstruction of the revolutionary In te rn a evolution of the Soviet Union. Despite Many Moscow Opposition gained new The Opposition was supported Ten Years of the Fight To Build tional drew up a courageous balance sheet of the h u m ili support in a second layer of ad Obstacles by an unmistakable majority of versaries of Stalin. the party and youth members in ating defeat of the German proletariat which brought in Led by Zinoviev, Kamenev, By NATHAN GOULD Moscow and numerous other im its train so many other murderous blows against the working class Krupskaya and other former op In September 1938 the historic portant centers. But the almighty A Revolutionary Party in the US of the world, and of Europe in particular. ponents of an alleged “Trotsky apparatus was in the hands of World Congress in Switzerland ism," the Leningrad party organ Following the wretched capitulation to fascism of the only party the notorious "trium virate"—Zino launched the Fourth International ization joined with the Moscow in Germany which laid official claims to the traditions of the Russian viev, Kamenev and Stalin. They By JAMES P. CANNON split; disruptive and unassimil- pretended to be more than we (World Party of the Socialist Re re v o lu tio n is ts to fo rm , in 1926- volution). One week later youth Revolution— the Communist Party— and the cynically wholehearted proceeded to invent the bogey The foundation congress of the able elements, who periodically are—but a plain statement of 1927, th e U n ite d O p p o sitio n B loc. representatives from two conti man of "Trotskyism," to befuddle Fourth International coincided, threatened our unity, were iso fact, which we can permit our endorsement of this capitulation by the entire Stalinist International, It was crushed even more sav nents gathered in the same city the minds of those they cpuld not within the span of a few weeks, lated and crushed every time. Be selves on this glorious tenth an the Bolshevik-Leninists of that time, organized as the International agely by the Stalin-Bukharin bloc and convened the World Youth intimidate, and by the crassest with the tenth anniversary of ginning as the tiniest and poor niversary. Our party, at the end Left Opposition, boldly proclaimed the need o f organizing a new, th a n th e 1923 O p p o sitio n had Conference of the Fourth Inter manipulation of the party ma our struggle for bolshevism in the est and most derided of all the of the ten years’ fight, has come been. But not before significant n a tio n a l. Fourth International, true heir and continuator of the great traditions chinery they not only succeeded U n ite d States. On O cto b er 27, 1928 radical labor groupings outside to represent the revolutionary international repercussions were This conference culminated two in voting down the Opposition we raised the banner of the Rus the camp of Stalinism, we have political movement in the United of the Internationals that had preceded it and implacable foe o f the heard. A whole section of the months of intense preliminary but In accelerating the trend to sian Opposition (the Bolshevik- outstripped them all. By timely States and to be synonymous official traducers of the working-class movement. Comintern leadership which had work. Eight special commissions wards bureaucratic degeneration. Leninists) in the Central Com and successful fusions with all with it. We are not yet a mass Joined in 1933 in the famous Pact of Four for the new Inter1 been forced into power by Zin- labored during these two months Rallied to the Opposition mittee of the Communist Party. the genuinely revolutionary party but we will become such. natiohal by the Socialist Workers Party of Germany, and the ovievist appointment, broke away groupings and by shouldering the The foundations have been laid in the examination of facts re It Is Interesting to note that Therewith we broke all ties with Independent Socialist Party and^ from the Stalinists and came pretenders aside, we have gained deep and strong. garding the situation of the from the very beginning, many Stalinism and we never once Revolutionary Socialist Party of exposure of what still goes by closer to the Opposition. the central position in the radical world youth, investigated records, of the most solid and ablest looked back. These events — the Holland, the Bolshevik-Leninists, the name of the Second ’’Inter» Other Breaks labor field. Revolutionary Realities toured the national youth sec elements In the Communist In formation of the American “Left the International Com m unist national.” Confronted by the These included the new Ger In looking back through the tions in Europe, drafted political ternational took a position either Opposition" and the World Con Outside the Stalinist Party, League gathering strength and danger of a new world imperi man leadership of Maslow-Fisch- ton-year period, which has been documents and resolutions.