~-k*~""'",---;,..cc'::~~~2-.'_--4;_;,; ... ~ :"",~ i~ I, THE NEW~INTERNATIONAL (With which is merged Labor Action) A MONTHLY ORGA.N OF REVOLUTIONARY MARXISM OFFICIAL THEORETICAL ORGAN OF THE WORKERS PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES Published once a month by the New International Publishing Company, 2 ,West 15th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription rates: $1.50 per year; $1.00 for se~en months. Canada and Abroad: $1.75 per year. Entered as Second Class matter January 26, 1935, at the Post' Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. VOLUME II Editors: 'NUMBER 2 MAX SHACHTMAN MARCH 1935 JOHN WEST TABLE OF CONTENTS The Problem of the Labor Party, by M. S...... 33 The Abolition of the Bread Cards in the Soviet Union, ,Where Is, Stalinism Leading Russia? .. , ...... 37 by Erich W ol'lenberg ...... 73 The Roosevelt "Security" Program, by John West..... 40 Stalin the Theoretician, by John G. Wright ...... 74 Lessons of the Paris Commune, by Leon Trotsky...... 43 BOOKS: The Housing Question in America: I. What the P~oblem Looks Like, by Henry' Stone. .. 47 \Vells' Autobiography, by John Hart ...... 75 2. How the Problem Is"Solved", by Paul V. McBride 5J Labor Historian, by Dennis Brown ...... 76 The Political Situation in Spain, by L. Fer sen ...... ,: ~ 52 To Make a Revolution, by J. W...... 77 Strikes on the 1935 Horizon, by A. J. Muste ...... , .. 57 Problems of the Pacific, by Jack Weber ...... 77 Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, by Max Shachtman ...... 60 Neurotic Society, by Bernard Wolfe ...... 78 American Trade Union Problems-II, by Arne Swabeck 64 Briefer Mention, by Florence Becker ...... 79 ,Why the Saar Was Lost, by Oskar Fischer ...... 67 A Picture of the Socialist Party ...... 80 In a Billion Dollar Industry, by Jack Wilson ...... 69 A Note to the Reader ...... ~. 'J' ...... 80 Marxism: Science or Method? by Rubin Gotesky...... 71 Back Cover: The Press. At Home.

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VOLUME II MARCH 1935 NUMBER 2 The Problem of the Labor Party A. GREAT CHANGE has come over the policies of the com- instant in the equally merciless grip of a Labor party upsurge. munist party in the United States, in consonance with the Bursting with the new knowledge, he rushed home with such an Rightward swing of the whole Third International. Where, only effervesceing anxiety to impart it to the masses that he felt it would yesterday, the party elders thundered against the blasphemous be unjust to keep it from them long enough to consult with the suggestion that the united front should be made from organization presumable leadership of the party, the Central Committee, or the to organization, that the leadership of the socialist party and other membership, much less to wait for their decision. The first revela­ labor organizations should be directly and formally approached­ tion of the fact that the "party" had changed "its" policy and now they now pant pathetically at the heels of the National Executive favored the formation of a Labor party, was made at a public Committee of the S. P. Whereas the C. P. convention as late as gathering in Washington on January 6. The Central Committee the spring of 1934 set itself the task of building up the "revolu­ of the party, subsequently convened, put its predestined stamp of tionary T.U.U.L." and of establishing the "Independent Federation approval on the new line about two weeks later. Whether the of Labor", it now hastens to dissolve every non-A. F. of L. union formal detail of discussion and approval by the membership was it ever had its hands on. But nowhere is the change as startling, attended .to in the hustle and bustle has not yet been fully estab­ both for completeness and abruptness, as in its policy with regard lished-in any case, it could not have been considered very impor­ to a Labor party. tant. Only an incorrigible petty bourgeois democrat, we are now Best evidence on this score is offered by examining its old policy. taught, wants to discuss a policy before executing it; your modem In 1928, the prevailing line of advocating a labor party was laid revolutionist carries it out first and then discusses it, if at all. on the table. By 1930, that is, at the height of the now totally "We must change our negative position towards the Labor party ignored but unforgettable "third period", it was taken off the table question," Browder explains, "which was determined by the ab­ and slashed to ribbons. In the theses and resolutions presented by sence of a practical mass movement which made it a practical the March-April 1930 Plenum for the 7th national convention, we problem." (Daily Worker, Jan. 19, 1935.) But it was determined were told that the results of the economic crisis "destroy the re­ by exactly opposite considerations in 1930; the mass movement formist illusions with which the bourgeoisie attempted to deceive was indeed there, but the Labor party then could have as its base and pacify the workers [and] continually accelerates the narrow­ merely the A. F. of L., which was "outright Fascist", the trade iug of tbe very social basis of reformism" (p. 8). Reformism and unions, which had been turned ,into "Fascist troops" and the "social its illusions are not only dying of social inanition, but "a revolu­ Fascist" S. P. Trusting to short memories, Browder ,continues to tionafyupsurge grips the working masses" (p. 9). There is pre­ point out that "Now there is a mass movement and it is a ques­ cious little difference among the tottering "reformist organizations tion of our party's participation among these masses and influenc­ and elements, some of which (A. F. of L.) are outright Fascist,· ing their course". while others (socialist party, Muste group [!]) cover their Fascist With that gift of contempt for consistency which elevates Brow­ activities with pseudo-radical phrases" (p. II). The reactionaries der above the common run of· men, be nonchalantly denies the have turned "the labor unions from instruments of struggle on above assertion a few weeks later, and points out: "There doe. beh~lf of the workers into instruments against the working masses not yet ezut a clearly-defined Labor party movement. There ia and into Ftucist troops of capitaU.sm" (p. II). If the C. P. bas only the begillning mass break-away, within which, a struggle ia been at fault at all in this situation, then only because "it has been going on between two main class forces." (Daily Worker, Feb. a mistake on our part that we did not sOoner clearly analyze and 14, 1935.) c:har~terize tbe open Ftucism of the A. F. of L'." (p. 33)· But regardless for the moment of whether the mass movemeat ConcJellion: " Any Labor party crystallization at this moment for the Labor party does or does not yet exist, the new policy of could have only [oilly!] the A. F. of L. unions, the socialist party the C. P. most certainly does. It merits an examination which we aDd other social reformist organizations as a basis, or would be think will not prove fruitless. compoeecl only of those already in sympathy with the communist * • • • party. A Labor party made up of soeial~Fasclst· organizations One need not go far afield to study the background of the ques­ would not mean poUtical separation of the workers from the capi­ tion: what is the relationship between a revolutionary Marxian talists .•ut would mean' the delivery of the workers to capitalist party and a Labor party? The American movement haa a rich politics under the gUise of a Labor party." (P. 15.) and instructive history in tbis field, and even a condensed recapi­ Neither the analysis nor the conclusion could be more sober, tulation of it bere will greatly facilitate an appraisal of the prob­ lucid or unassailable. Be that as it may, here was the C. P. policy lem as presented today. Indeed, the latter cannot be achieved on the Labor party till the end of 19J4. It was so completely without the former. interre4, that neither in his poUtical report nor his summary at In 1922, the just organized legal communist party (the Workers the April 1934 convention of the C. P., did Browder so much as party) put forward for the first time the slogan for a Labor party mention the words "Labor party" or hint that it was' or might and launched a campaign to realize it. The reasons for the new become an issue. At the end of that very year, however, finding policy were fourfold: I) there was not only a strong Labor party himself by chance in the city of Moscow, the same Browder was sentiment among the workers, but a national Farmer-Labor party. suddenly stunned by the realization that the workers 9f the United strongly supported by many trade union bodies, actually existed; Stat~, tiD then in the grip of a revolutionary apsarp, had bepD 2) the railroad Brotherhoods, tocetber with other national union. t() break away from the capitalist parties and were at the same and farm organizations, had launched the Conference for Progres.. • All italics in this article are the author's. sivePolitical Action in Chicago in February 1922 ; 3) the recently Page 34 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

adopted united front tactic 6f the Third International; 4) Lenin's Labor party, in which they saw the communists participating ever conditional advice to the British Communists to seek affiliation more actively if not decisively, waned in direct proportion as the with the Labour party. enthusiasm waxed in the Workers party over the enchanting pros­ Easier to understand in retrospect than to have perceived it at pect of getting rich quickly by manreuvririg the non-communists that time, the socalled Labor party movement developed simul­ into. forming a Labor party dominated by it. For the convention taneously and in significant combination with the socalled Third called to launch the new party, the W. P. toiled like Trojans to party movement. The former ll!ay be summed up as the first round up delegates from all conceivable organizations under its post-war reformist p.o.1itical .expr~ssion of the discontent of the control. The Fitzpatrick crowd came to the July 4, 1923 conven­ workers with the capitalist regime and its two parties, dissatisfac­ tion only with credentials from the masses behind themi-that is, tion with the hoary official policy of "reward your friends and whatever masses there were--whereas the W.P. came with masses punish your enemies", a groping towards independent working of credentials. And credentials were trumps. Horrified by the class expression on the political field. The latter was the move­ red monster they had nurtured and the prospect that now stared ~ent of middle class protest, chafing under the yoke of the parties them grimly in the face of forming a Labor party controlled by of monopolist capitalism, dominated by the labor bureaucracy, the communists who demanded little more than an endorsement of survivors of Bull Moose Progressivism and the latter-day repre­ the dictatorship of the proletariat, Fitzpatrick, N ockels and their sentatives of western Populism, all of whom piously abhorred the associates made a right-about-face, denounced their friends of idea of independent working class political organization and action yesterday for having "injected themselves into the picture" and­ ~ith sufficient zeal to counteract any movement in that direction. in a word-withdrew from the whole enterprise. Unabashed ?-no, Anxious to break with the sectarian past of their underground that is too negative; let us rather say: deliriously enthusiastic over e;Kistence, apprehensive lest they remain isolated from the political the conquest, the W. P. and its assembled communist auxiliaries development of the masses, the communists flung themselves into founded the famous "Federated Farmer-Labor party". the campaign for a Labor party, with a rising overestimation of The estimate of 500,000 organized members of the F.F.-L.P., its hold upon the masses, its distinctive class character, its possi­ arrived at by counting communist noses over and over again in a bilities and its virtues. closed circle, did not help the still-born product of the July 4 The original conception of the Labor .. party was that it would parturition break out of the increasing isolation that hemmed it be, roughly, the American equivalent of its British namesake, in from all sides of the labor movement. Where yesterday, the based on the trade union movement whose political organization it average trade unionist or third-rank union official had spoken quite would be, reformist in character, aftlicted with all the fundamental favorably about a Labor party, the mere appearance of the F.F.­ defects of its British counterpart, but representing, as did the L.P. in the vicinity now brought him (unless, of course, he was latter in its early days, the separation of the working class from already sympathetic to the communists and their party) to' a frigid the bourgeoisie on the political field. In it, the communists would silence or, in many cases, to a heated repudiation of his old pro­ play the role corresponding in this country .to that suggested by Labor party views. The actually formed party was, alas! not at Lenin to the communists in England. "A Labor party will grow all like the robust creature of the first communist conception, and because of its fonnation by the organized workers," read the offi­ it shivered in the icy atmosphere that encircled it. Indeed, it ,pain­ cial party pamphlet in October 1922. "A Labor party would de­ fully resembl~d the W. P. in too many respects, and the political serve that name only.if it were formed by the trade unions. A or organizational distinction between the two was not heightened Labor party of any other form would be a mere caricature, a by the fact that the national secretary of the F.F.-L.P. was a political swindle, and a miscarriage. A Labor party should be prominent communist or that its weekly paper was written in the launched only if it is created lIy the trade unitlns." The basis for same office, printed in the same plant, and contained the self-same such a Labor party seemed to exist in virtue of the fact that the views as the weekly l>aper of the W.P. In the Moscow discussions idea had been formally endorsed by any number of international later on, Karl Radek said that the Federated was seven-eights unions, state federations, local unions, central bodies, etc. fantasy. The other eighth, be it added, was composed of the com­ In December 1922, the second conference. of the C.P.P.A. took munists trying to look respectable. place in Oeveland, where the' labor bur.eaucracy in control, with The real father, mother and midwife of the Federated was John the collaboration of the socialist party, kicked out the official com­ Pepper, international adventurer, intriguer par excellence, destroy­ munist delegation which had come there to advocate the formation er of revolutions and movements in Hungary, Germany, America of the Labor party. The C.P.P.A., which really danced at the end and China, man of many principles and .none at, all, and in that o'fstrings held in the grip of the LaFollette gang in the Senate, period the political leader of the W. P. At the meeting of the rejected the Labor party idea out of hand. From that time on, the party Central Committee on A\1gust 24, 1923, he presented a docu­ Workers party's conceptions underwent an imperceptible but im­ ment which was at once a justification of the Federated and a portant modification. Whereas it had originally been thought that rationaliz~tion of its narrowness unique in the radical movement. i. not the whole then at least the bulk of the A. F. of L. would Not only because of its cabinet history at the time, but even more l~uJKh the L~bor party, a turn wa~ now made according to which because. it has such a direct bearing on the Labor party discussion the new party would be launched upon the initiative of the W. P. today, the document, known thenceforward as the "August thesis", and the pro-Labor party minority in the A. F. of L .. The center deserves a few explanatory remarks. of the latter was the leadership of the Chicago Federation of Labor "The development of the Labor party in America," it read, -Fitzpatrick, Nockels, Buck-who were also the leaders of the "takes a different form from that in Great Britain. The British existing Farmer-Labor party. With this somewhat altered policy, Labour party was formed.. . . from above by the officials of the the W.P. commenced what became known as the "Chicago orienta­ trade union mov~ment. . . . The Labor party movement in the tion". United States today is a rank and file movement." Significantly enough, the closer the communists came to an The large trade union movement which was expected to be the organieationaireaLization of their slogan, the further away from base of the party was not represented in the Federated ? Yes. ita»ved the fundamentally pro-Labor party elements (that is, "The' July 3 cODvention revealed the fact that the big International those who did not regard it merely as a tactical step forward, but UlIlioos did notoomf!, that only local unions and city central bodies as tile It,U-sufticient goal-the "pure and simple" Labor or Farmer­ we·re represented, that in fact the Labor party today is a rank and Labor partyites). The enthusiasm of Fitzpatrick and Co. for the file proposition. It also showed another fact, namely, that the March 1935 THE NEW INTERN ATIONAL Page 3S rank and file is permeated with communist influence." -It also been the really organized force) were the soc ailed Farmer.. Labor showed, he added, that "not a single organized political group parties of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, .with. -outside of the Workers party exists today which wishes to take groups of various sizes and importance in other agricultural stat~. up the fight for the Labor party on a national scale. . . . The As the ally of the communists in founding the national move~ent, \Vorkers party has the historical task of becoming the leader of the farmers now appeared in place of the Chicago Federation of the Labor party movement in America". Labor. The substitution was highly significant. The W.P. and What about the socialist party, and the rueful remnants of its shadow continued to write emphatjc resolutions about hqw Fitzpatrick's organization, both of which continued to defend the quintessential it was for" the new party to be a "class Farmer-Labor idea of a Labor party? Let them go their way and we" go ours, party" and "not a Third party", but the weighty theses left no answered Pepper. "In America we have a number of political visible impression upon the northwestern successors to the classic movements of middle class agrarian protest. Regardless o"f the groups which fight for influence within the trade u~i6n movement. The attempt to gain influence upon the workers assumes in Amer­ speeches that may have swayed them at this or that meeting, or ica the organizational expression of forming various labor parties. even the carefully prepared resolutions for which they may have The socialist party tries. to form a Labor party. The old Farmer­ been cajoled into voting, these groups were and remained-it could Labor party tries to form another Labor party, the Workers party not have been otherwise-adjuncts of LaFollettism, a Third party movement. In real life, they no more fitted into the grandiose, Jras helped in the formation of the Federated party.'~ over-clever manceuvers of Pepper to concoct a mass Labor party Every party would have a Labor party of its own! Not only or a mass communist party behind the backs of the proletariat and ""ould each of them vary in the degree of its revoltitionism or the bourgeoisie, than Pepper fitted into the communist movement. reformism in accordance with its patron, but-in view of the fact The incompatibility of the two partners in the new plan was real­ that the Federated was also trying to form a "wider" Labor party ized dimly and even with some uneasiness by the W.P. leaders. -the possibilities for expanding the number of rings in this be­ Yet they hoped to cheat their way out of an inexorable antagonism wildering circus were positively unlimited. But if the Federated of social movements by a bureaucratic opportunist manceuver. communist majority elected to the executive committee in advance? be cut off at the rear and the W.P. would not only have its' national If God were not with us but with one of the other Labor parties­ party but would ward off or weaken the possibilities of forming why, then we would throw off the now needless disguise and reveal the "Third party". To take care of all eventualities, the Novem­ the Federated as the mass communist party! . . . ber meeting of the Central Committee decided to enter into an Some of the startled party leaders had by that time begun to "alliance" with the Third party movement. The decision was an meditate on what must have been the theme of the play on N apo­ involuntary acknowledgment that the movement "to form a "class" leon which Pepper had written for production on the Budapest Labor party, distinct from the revolutionary proletarian party as stage several" years earlier. More important was the fact that they well as from the Third party, Was lost. The decision in favor of also meditated on the great changes that had come over the old the alliance "under certain specified conditions," wrote Bittelman

Labor party policy of the party, the changes in the Labor party subsequently, Iteven to the txtent of supporting LaFollette for the movement itself, and the concomitant growth of the distinctly presidency, was exclusively designed" as a manceuver to combat Third party movement. The" "August thesis" appeared more and LaFollettism and to save the Farmtr-Labor elements for a Farmer­ more fantastic and devoid of reality, to say nothing of revolution­ Labor party" . .ary Marxism. The thesis was vigorously defended by Pepper, This last phase of the Labor party policy of the W.P. created Ruthenberg, Lovestone, Wolfe and Gitlow, and just as vigorously an international scandal.. Under pressure from Trotsky, the opposed by Foster, Cannon, Browder, Bittelman and Dunne. At executive of the Third In~ernational rudely yanked the American the November 192 3 meeting of the Central Committee, the thesis, party out of the morass into which it had plunged like a diver under the barrage of the opposition, was reluctantly shelved and groping at the bottom for the pearls of a Labor party. The humil­ what later proved to be an unsatisfactory compromise resolution iating retreat was not made pleasanter by the fact that LaFollette was adopted in its stead. himself unappreciatively launched a broadside at his self-sacrificing From this meeting on, however, the W.P. entered the third "allies", the communists, and at the idea of a Farmer-Labor party, -phase of its Labor party policy, subsequently designated as the ill­ even before the St. Paul convention at which it was to be formed. fated "Northwestern orientation". The original trade union, that On June 17, 1924, the convention assembled with the massively is, proletarian support "considered by the W.P. as the basis for the credentialed hosts of theW.P. and its standard auxiliarie~, plus Labor party (which 'had, in passing, now become a Farmer-Labor the ragtag and bobtail of its agratian cottfederafes. The commu­ party), had experiencea such a drastic decline since the Federated nists went unsmilingly through the solemn ritual of acting like conventi"on as to be virtually non-existent. Labor party sentiment, innocent Farmer-Laborites and nominated a former Illinois miners' and even more so Labor party organization, had never been more union official, Duncan MacDonald, for president, and a Washing­ than negligible throughout the highly-industrialized, proletarian ton cherry farmer, William Bouck, for vice-president. The Poli­ East--in New England, along the Atlantic Seaboard and as far tical Coinmittee of the W.P. wrote a respectable, reformist program inland as Pennsylvania and Ohio. Now, even the central western for them to run on. The first "monster campaign rally" in Chicago Labor party movement had waned. In pursuit of what was becom­ to launch the national campaign, was more than enough. The in.g more and miOre ·of a will-o'-the-wisp, the W. P. and its alter local campaign committee was too% communist; the literature ego~ the Federated, turned feverishly to the agrarian Northwest. was distributed exclusively by communists ; the hall was hired, All that was left of an "organized movement (they had always paid for, and attended only by communists, who loyally shouted THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

themselves hoarse for "our candidates". On July 8, a greatly blatant ignorance of scientific socialism and the laws of develop­ sobered Political Committee publicly announced that the Farmer­ ment of the labor movement. The British Labour party rose and Labor party candidates would be withdrawn (much to the relief was an indisputably progressive factor in the working class in the of both of them!) and that the campaign would henceforward be period of the rise of capitalism. Not only was it a "unique party", made by :William Z. Foster and Ben Gitlow on an open communist a bloc of organizations, with no program of its own, with no ticket and· in the name of the W.P. Ninety percent of the com­ special discipline, with liberty of agitation for revolutionary munist workers gave their first honest cheer in months. The groups within it, but, like all the reformist parties of the Second "Farmer-Labor" masses never noticed the change-they had all International before the war and regardless of how defectively, gone over to LaFollette. it contributed to the historical advancement of the proletariat as "The Farmer-Labor movement which we wanted to save from a class. being swallowed by LaFollette was substantially a LaFollette C onditionaUy, Lenin considered it possible even after the war movement," wrote a penitent and much wiser Bittelman in the to advise the British communists to seek affiliation with it because official post mortem on the whole campaign. "To save it from of its "unique" character, even though he emphasized that properly LaFollette meant to win it for class struggle which, under the speaking it was a bourgeois party of workers and not a proletarian prevailing conditions, was the same as accepting the leadership of party. The opportunists are aiming to make it a "real party with the Workers (Communist) party. And such a step the Farmer­ local organizations and a program", argued the Communist Inter­ Labor movement of the Northwest, predominantly agrarian and national in Lenin's time, to "create a large opportunist party petty bourgeois, was very far from being ready to take. Our which is to retard the revolutionary development of the masses. w'rong decision with regard to the Third party, later corrected by If this tendency were to succeed, the Labour party would never the Communist International, was a direct result of our orientation afford the socialist organizations which form part of it the right upon the Farmer-Labor movement of the Northwest which was to an individual communist policy, nor to the propagation of the substantially a LaFollette movement. We attempted to save a revolutionary struggle. It would bind their freedom of action Farmer-Labor soul which didn't exist and in the process we nearly hand and foot. It is thus evident that no kind of organization lost our own communist souI." (Workers Monthly, Dec. 1924, p. seeking to carry out a communist policy could possibly belong to 90·) the Labour party. It would then become necessary, after a most In the pamphlet just issued by the C.P., this development is energetic struggle against this tendency, to leave the Labour party entitled by Stachel "The LaFollette Trick" (The Problem of a and to endeavor to keep in touch with the working masses by means Labor Party, p. 9). Bureaucrats accustomed to solving all prob­ of increasing the communist activity in the trade unions, by detach­ lems and dispelling all obstacles by meanS of "tricks", fall natur­ ing these trade unions from the Labour opportunist parties and ally into the same superficial explanation of social or political persuading them to go over directly to communism". (The I.L.P. phenomena in which others appear to have dealt similarly with and the Third International, p. 53·) problems and obstacles. But there was not much of a "trick" to As what would the American "Labor" party start: as the British LaFollette's easy success. Whoever hasn't learned more than that Labour party of 19OO or of 1935? Closer, far closer to the latter from the 1922-1925 events, hasn't learned much, and is sure to date and condition than to the former! We mean of course a reproduce the same tragi-comedies in the year 1935. What appears genuine "Labor" party, that is, a reformist party, with a reform~st to us to follow plainly from the experience~ of the past, substan­ program, with a reformist leadership, and with the ~ormlst tiated also by what can be seen in the country today, is the fol­ unions (organizations, not individuals) at its base-assumlRg that lowing conclusion: one is to be established. \Vould such a party, in view of the British There 'is no room in the present conditions of the class struggle experiences and what we know to be the situation in this country ~ fOr the stable, unartificial existence of a "class Labor" party (to be of a kind that would ~et the requirements for affiliation by a say nothing of the fantastic two-class "class Farmer-Labor party) revolutionary Marxian party set out in 1920 by Lenin? In all which is distinct from a third capitalist party as well as from the likelihood, No. In any case, the attitude of the revolutionary party revolutionary party of the proletariat. The only genuine labor towards a genuine, mass "Labor" party would have to be deter­ party is the party of revolutionary Marxism. Past experiences mined not by what it may ot may not be if and when it is formed, in this country-not to mention the experiences in other lands!­ not by what we would like to have it be, but by what it wo~ld be show that the evolution of the British Labour party, namely, its once it was formed. For, it is "ot the business of the revolutionMY degeneration from a great progressive force which separated the Marxists above all in the present stage of the relationshi/l betwee" proletariat politically from the bourgeoisie to a reactionary obstacle capitalist'disintegration and social reformism, to initiate or to help to progress which ties the proletariat politically to the bourgeoisie, organize and found in addition to thew own party another party is accomplished in the United States under conditions of capitalist for the' usecond class citizens", for the "backwcwd workers", I) decline in a far more telescoped period of time. ~t Labor" party, i.e., a third capitalist party, even if composed pre- To attempt to foist upon the American revolutionary movement dominantly of workers. the obsolete advice given by Engels to tl)e Marxist emigrants in Wherein would that golden-haired dream child common to the the United States of fifty years ago, and to conclude from it that aspirations of Louis Waldman, Norman Thomas, Jay Lovestone' it is our task to found a Labor party now, is to do violence to the and Earl Browder differ fundamentally from a "Third party", say whole spirit of Marxism, is to ignore the tremendous changes that from the 1924 LaFollette party or the Farmer-Labor party of have taken place throughout the world (the United States not Minnesota? In respect to program? Leadership? Composition? excepted) in capitalism, in the labor movement and in the revolu­ Methods? Goal? It would be interesting to learn what the con­ tionary movement. Lovestone, for example, is perfectly willing crete and detailed difference is presumed to be in all five respects!' to start at exactly the point where Engels left off in his letters to Whoever hopes to establish or invent an essential difference is Florence Wischnewetzky in 1887, as if nothing had happened since simply disregarding the unambiguous lessons of the past. Wh3;t that timel was clearly revealed more than ten years ago gives no reason for The attempt, in theory and practise, to force the American pessimism. It was not proved that the working class and even the ~~rking class, in 1935, to go through a faithful, mechanical repe­ farmers must inevitably fall under the influence of petty bourgeois tltton of every stage through which the British working class was demagogues of Third party ism in the struggle for hegemony be­ obliged to pass at the beginning of the century, is to reveal a tween the latter and the revolutionary Marxists. Not at all! What March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 37 was proved is that in the battle between the revolutionary party ture compared with which a live-historic ichthyosaurus would and the third capitalist party for the support of the masses who deserve as much attention as a sparrow? Then what will it be? are breaking away from the old bourgeois parties, the slogan of According to Stachel again, it will be ~othing more or less than the "Labor" party--or even the slogan of the "mass, class Labor "a genuine Labor party". A barrel of tar would be clearer than party" (whatever that is)-does not possess sufficient class vitality a Stalinist explanation. And what is its function? It will, to or distinction from the Third party to make it possible to wean return to the Daily Worker, "lead the masses in their struggle for the masses away from the latter by means of it. That vitally im­ immediate demands .... Communists will point out to the workers portant task can only be accomplished under the banner and on that their revolutionary program is the further development· of the fighting program of .the revolutionary proletarian party. Not, the minimum policy of the Labor party. They will always advocate it goes without saying, by mere recruiting campaigns, but by the the full revolutionary program of the communist party". If this concrete leadership which such a party is able to offer the workers galimathias means anything, it is that there is to be a strict division (in contrast to the petty bourgeois politicians and 'the trade union of labor: the Labor party is to lead the workers every day in their bureaucracy) in the course of their daily struggles for immediate . struggles for all their immediate demands-that's its job;· the C.P. demands. is to lead the workers on the day of the insurrection-that's its The Labor party is not an abstraction; it must be considered job. Whence it is clear that neither separately nor together are concretely. Assuming that it is formed in the United States (and they capable of leading ,the workers in any struggle. According its creation is by no means a foreordained certainty, an inevitable to Stachel, (p. 16), who drips light with every drop of ink, this stage the American workers must experience before they can think Labor party, which is not revolutionary, it is true, but not reform­ of revolutionary struggle!), it is more likely than not that it will ist either, which is. ,to exclude the trade union bureaucrats, Sin­ take shape as a directly anti-revolutionary (ergo, anti-progressive) clair, Olson, the S.P. bureaucracy and even the Lovestoneites, party. With a stormy forward march of the American masses, in which is, in a word, something we'd give a pretty penny to see in the course of which they may skip "stages" with even greater ease the flesh--will "really carryon the struggle for the workers for and speed than their Russian brothers, the petty bourgeois reform­ wage increases, for the Workers Unemployment and Social Insur­ ers plus the socialist and trade union bureaucracy might conceiv­ ance Bill, for the 30-hour week without reduction in pay, for the ably form a "Labor" party for the express purpose of thwarting needs of the farmers, for the rights of the Negro masses, for the the progress of the working class. Those pseudo-revolutionists right to organize, strike, etc., against the growing menace of war who are so frenziedly anxious to see a Labor party in the U. S. and Fascism" I The Labor party that carries on a struggle (and so long as it looks something like its British predecessor, undoubt­ a real one, too) against war and Fascism I If it can do ail this edly have some "exceptional" surprises in store for them. (and probably other things as well), what worker will ask for We speak of course of a "Labor" party in the true sense of the more? What will be his need for the communist party? What word. If it does not greatly. resemble the fantasmagoria just indeed? brewed out of the witches' cauldron of Stalinism, that is hardly A veritable resurrection of Pepperism is what we have here, a our fault, for such a "Labor" party as the C.P.now proposes to little cruder, a little more vulgar, a little more opportunistic if inflict upon the proletariat, never has been and never will be seen that were possible. (By the way, it is touching to hear Lovestone by God or man or beast or the elfin folk who see pretty near every­ damn Browder's queer Labor party policy; it is a clear case of thing. "There is only one revolutionary party," declares the Daily author's envy, for Browder has merely plagiarized the Pepper­ Worker (February 16), "and that is the communist party." So Lovestone August thesis I) Having liquidated all the theories of the Labor party will be reformist? No, it continues. "This does revolutionary Marxism, the C.P. is now engaged in liquidating not mean that the Labor party that the communists propose would itself. Another "Federated" is already projected. How long before be reformist." Then it will be revolutionary? No, answers we are offered another "LaFollette manreuver"? The patient are Stachel, the "Labor party is not a revolutionary party" (loc. cit., never unrewarded. Meanwhile, in its work of self-liquidation, we p. 19). Not revolutionary, not reformist! Won't this be a crea· cannot but wish the Stalinists god-speed. M.S. Where Is Stalinism Leading Russia? HE GENERAL Turn to the Right. A new chapter is being Communist International that supplemented the perfidious role of T opened in the history of the Soviet Union. To the majority, the social democracy, has led to the entry of the Soviet Union into the shot which was fired at Kirov struck like thunder from a clear the League of Nations. With its characteristic cynicism, the sky. Yet the sky was not at all clear. In Soviet economic life, bureaucracy represented this action not as a forced retreat neces­ despite its successes, to a large measure because of its successes, sitated by the worsening of the international position of the profound contradictions have accumulated which it is impossible Soviets, but on the contrary as a supreme success. In Hitler's not only to eliminate but even to mitigate by the sole means of victory over the German proletariat, the Soviet workers and pea­ issuing decrees and orders from above. At the same time there sants are duty-bound to see the victory of Stalin over the League has been an extreme sharpening of the contradiction between the of Nations. The essence of the turn is amply disclosed by the bureaucratic methods of management and the needs of economic speeches, the votes at Geneva, and the interviews by Litvinov: if and cultural development as a whole. The unexpected terroristic Soviet diplomacy did score a victory over anything, it was, per­ act, and particularly the trials, the administrative reprisals, and haps, only a victory over its last vestiges of restraint in the face of the new cleansing of the party which followed it, provided only the public opinion of the proletariat. In international policies, all an external and dramatic form to that general turn in Soviet poli­ class, and national-liberationist criteria have been entirely dis­ cies which has been unfolding during the last year and a half. carded. The sole, guiding principle is-the preservation of the The general direction of this turn is to the Right, more to the status quol Right, and still further to the Right. In harmony with this, the Communist International-without The Policy of Maintaining the Status Quo. The crushing of the any discussion, and without the promised Congress of course German proletariat which resulted from the fatal policies of the (after all, of what service are Congresses in serious matters?)- Page J8 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

has executed the most breakneck turn-about in its entire history. would not depend upon plans but which would be of assistance in From the theory and practise of the "third period" and "social­ checking them. The Soviet theoreticians' saw in this proposal only Fascism", it has gone over to permanent coalitions not only with our urge to "restore capitalism". Now they are compelled to the social democracy but with Radical Socialists, the main prop of reeducate themselves in a hurry. The ABC of Marxism has its the national government in France. The program of the struggle superior points. for pOWer is today decreed to be counter-revolutionary provoca­ Who Will Pay for the J.Vf istakes? The transition to the system tion. The policies of the vassal "alliance" with the Kuo Min Tang of monetary calculation implies inevitably and primarily the trans­ (1925- 192 7) are transferred without a hitch to the soil of Europe. lation into the ringing language of gold of all the hidden and The turn has the very same goal of-preserving the European masked contradictions in the economic life. Someone, however, status quo! will have to pay for the accumulated miscalculations and dispro­ The Turn Toward the Market. In the sphere of Soviet economic portions. Will it be the bureaucracy? Of course not; for, indeed, life, the tUrn is no less profound in its tendencies. The planned the keeping of accounts and the treasury will remain in its hands. b.eginning has demonstrated what forces were latent in it. But at The peasantry? But the reform is taking place to a large measure the same time, it has also indicated the limits within which it can under pressure of the peasantry, and at least during the period be applied. An a priori economic plan in general-all the more so, immediately ahead it will prove most profitable for the tops in the in a backward country with a population of 170 million, and a village. The workers are those who will have to pay; the mis­ profound contradiction between the city and the village-is not a takes of the bureaucracy will be corrected at the expense of their military d~cree but a working hypothesis which must be painstak­ vital needs. The repeal of the consumers' cards hits the workers ingly checked and recast in the process of fulfillment. Two levers directly and immediately, especially the lowest, and most poorly must serve to regulate the plan, the financial and political levers: paid sections, that is, the vast majority. a stable monetary systeJ.l1, and an active response on the part of But Where Is the Complete "Abolition of Classes'" The prim­ the interested groups in the populace to the incompatibilities and ary aim of returning to the market and to the stable monetary gaps in the plan. But the political self-action on the part of the system (the latter is still in project) consists in interesting the population has been stifled. And at the last party convention, collective farmers directly in the results of their own labor, and Stalin proclaimed that the need for a stable currency was a "bour­ thus eliminating the most negative consequences of forced collec­ geois superstition". This happy aphorism had to be revised to­ tivization. This retreat is dictated unconditionally by the mistak~s gether with another and no less famous one-about the "twins", of preceding policies. We must not close our eyes, however, to Fascism and social detllocracy. the fact that the regeneration of market relations inevitably implies How long ago was it that this very same Stalin promised to the strengthening of individualistic and centrifugal tendencies in send the N.E.P., that is to say, the market to "the devil"? How rural economy, and the growth of differentiation betweeen the long ago was it that the entire press trumpeted that buying and collective farms, as well as inside the collectives. selling were to be completely supplanted by "direct socialist distri­ Th~ political sections were instituted in the village, according to bution" ? It was proclaimed that the consumers' ca.rd was the Stalin's report, as supra-party and supra-Soviet militarized appar­ external symbol of this "distribution". According to this theory, atuses .to exercise ruthless control over the collective farms. The the Soviet currency .itself, by the close of the second Five Year party press celebrated the political sections as the ripest product Plan, was already to be transformed into mere consumers' tokens of the "Leader's genial mind". Today, after a year's labor, the like theater or street car tickets. Indeed, is there really room for political sections have been liquidated on the sly, almost without money in a socialist society where no classes, no social contrad~c­ any obituaries: the bureaucracy is retreating before the moujik; tions exist, and' where products are distributed in accordance With administrative pressure is being supplanted by a "smytchka" a provided plan? through the chervonetz; and because of this very fact, the forced But all these promises grew dimmer as the second Five Year levelling must give place to differentiation. Plan drew closer to its conclusion. Today, the bureaucracy finds Thus, towards the conclusion of the second Five Year Plan, we itself compelled to apply to "the devil" with a very humble request have not the liquidation of the "last remnants" of class society, as that the market given over to his safekeeping be returned. True, the conceited and ignorant bureaucrats had promised, but on the according to the blueprints, trading is to take place only through contrary new processes of class stratification. The epic period of the organs of the state apparatus. The future will show to what the administrative "liquidation of the kulak as a class" is followed extent it will bej possible to adhere to this system. If the collective by entry into the belt of economic concessions to the kulak tenden­ farm engages in trading, the collective farmer will also trade. It cies of the "well-to-do collective farmer". In the very heat of is not easy to fix the boundaries beyond which the trading collec­ 100% collectivization, the Bolshevik-Leninists forecasted the in­ tive farmer becomes transformed into a tradesman. The market evitability of retreat. Zinoviev was sentenced to ten years of im­ prisonment for having dared to express doubts as to the possibility has laws of its own: of realizing 100% collectivization (no other accusations are brought The Change to Monetary Calculation. The system of consum­ against him!). But what did experience prove? The retreat has ers' cards, beginning with bread cards, is being eliminated gradu­ begun. Where it will stop cannot be known as yet. Once again ally. The relations between the city and the village are to be the Stalinist bureaucracy has shown that it is never able to foresee regulated in an increasing measure by monetary calculation. For the day after tomorrow. It's short-sighted empiricism, the product this, a stable chervonetz is required. Colossal and not unsuccess­ of crushing all criticism and thought, plays dirty tricks upon its ful efforts are being made in the production of gold. own self, and, what is much worse, upon the country of socialist The translation of economic relations into the language of money construction. is absolutely necessary at the given, initial stage of socialist devel­ The Neo-N.B.P. and the Alarm Witthin the Country. Even be­ opment in order to have the basis for calculating the actual social fore the Neo-N.E.P., which was unprovided for in any of the usefulness and economic effectiveness of the labor energy expended plans, has had a chance to manifest any economic results, it has by workers and peasants; only in this way is it possible to ration­ called forth very acute political consequences. The turn to the alize economic life by regulating the plans. Right in foreign and domestic policies could not fail to arouse For the last few years we have dozens of times pointed out the alarm among the more class conscious elements of the proletariat. need for a stable monetary unit, the purchasing power of which To alarm there was added dissatisfaction, because of the consider- March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 39 able rise in the cost of living., The mood of the peasantry remains period for checking the balance of the two Five Year Plans, and it unstable :and tense. To this'must be added the dull rumbling hastens to insure itself beforehand. It is ready to make economic among the youth, particularly among that section which, being concessions to the peasantry, that is to say, to its petty bourgeois close to the bureaucracy, observes it arbitrariness, its privileges, interests and tendencies. But it does not want to make any con;. and abuses. In this thick atmosphere, the shot of Nicolaiev ex­ cessions to the political interests of the proletarian vanguard. On ploded. the contrary, it begins its new turn towards the "well-to-do col­ The Opposition and Terrorism. The Stalinist press strives to lective farmer" with a wild' police' raid' against every living and deduce ,the terrorist act of 1934 from'the opposition' platform of thinking element in the working class and the student youth. 1926. "Every opposition [we are told] leads inevitably to counter­ Today, one can already forecast that after the raid against the revolution." Should one seek to locate here a political idea, it Lefts, there will sooner or later follow a raid against the Rights. would turn out to be approximately the' following: although the Bureaucratic Centrism, which has developed into the Soviet form platform as such excludes the idea of individual terror, it, never­ of Bonapartism, would not be what it is, if it could maintain its theless, awakens criticism and dissatisfaction: and since dissatis­ equilibrium in any other manner save by continual attacks on "two faction can find no normal outlet through party, Soviet, or trade fronts", i.e., in the last analysis, against proletarian international­ union· channels, it must in the end, inevitably lead those who are ism, and against the tendencies of capitalist restoration. The basic unbalanced to terroristic acts. There is a kernel of truth in such task of the bureaucracy is-to hold its own. The enemies and the a supposition, only one must know how to husk it. As is well opponents of the ruling clique, or merely those friends who are known, criticism and dissatisfaction do not always lead to terror­ not quite reliable are classified as Left or Right "agencies of the istic attempts and to assassinations, which arise only under those intervention", often depending only upon the technical conveniences exceptional circumstances when the contradictions bec,ome strained of the amalgam. The expulsion of Smirnov, the former People's to the, utmost, when the atmosphere is surcharged electrically, when Commissar of Agriculture, from the party is a subtle warning to dissatisfaction is very widespread, and when the bureaucracy holds the Rights: "Don't bestir yourselves. Remember there is a tomor­ the advanced elements of the country by the throat. In its aphor­ row!" Today, at any rate, the blows are being directed entirely ism: "ev~ry opposition leads inevitably to counter-revolution", the at the Left. Stalinist press supplies the most merciless and somber criticism The 'Tripartite Formula of Stalinist Bonapartism. The Diplo­ possible of the Stalinist regime. And this time it speaks the truth. matic retreat before the world bourgeoisie and before reformism; To Insure the Turn 10 Ihe Right-A Blow to the Left. The the economic retreat before the petty bourgeois tendencies withl" bureaucracy's reply to the shot of Nicolaiev was a rabid attack ..the country; the political 0 fJensive against the vanguard of the against the Left wing of the party and the working class. It proletariat-such is the tripartite formula of the neW chapter in almost seems as if Stalin only awaited a pretext for the onslaught the development of Stalinist Bonapartism. With what does this upon Zinoviev, Kamenev and their friends. The newspapers, just chapter c::Iose? In any case, not with a classless society, and a as in 1924-1929, are waging an absolutely inconceivable campaign bureaucracy peacefully dissolving within it. On the contrary, the against "Trotskyism". Enough to say that Trotsky is now being workers' state is again entering a period of an open political crisis', depicted in Pravda as the planter of "counter-revolutionary nests" IWhat endows it with an unheard-of acuteness today is not the within the Red Army during the period of the civil war; and, of contradictions of the transitional economic system, however pro­ course, the salvaging of the revolution from these "nests" is the found they may be-in themselves, but the singular position of the heroic feat of Stalin. In schools, universities, periodicals and bureaucracy which not only refuses, but which can no longer make commissariats are being discovered ever new "Trotskyists", in political concessions to the vanguard of the toilers. Having become many instances backsliders. Arrests and exiles have once again itself the captive of the system it has erected, the Stalinist clique is assumed a mass character. About 300,000 individuals, 15-20%, now the main source of the political convulsions in the country. have again been removed' from the many times cleansed patty. The Chief Danger to the U.s.S.R.-Stalinism. How far-reach.. Does this mean that the Bolshevik-Leninists have had such large ing will be the political, the Communist International, and the eco­ successes during the recent period? Such a conclusion would be nomic turn to the Right? To what new social consequences will too premature. The dissatisfaction among workers has indubitably it bring the U.S.S.R.? Judgment on these questions can be passed grown; there has also been a growth in the sympathy toward the only on the basis of carefully estimating all the stages of the devel­ Left Opposition. But suspicion and fear of the bureaucracy have opment during the years immediately ahead. In any case, nothing grown stilI greater. The bureaucracy is already incapable of as­ can save the Comintern. Falling step by step, its completely de­ similating even capitulators who are sincere. For its sharp turn moralized bureaucracy literally betrays the most vital interests of to the Right it requires a massive amputation on the Left. Nico­ the world proletariat in return for the favors of the Stalinist laiev's shot served to provide the external justification for Stalin's clique. But the state which was created by the October revolution political surgery. is virile. The years of forced industrialization and collectivization, The Adventurism of Individual Terror. Individual terror is under the lash and with all lights extinguished, have produced adventuristic by its very essence: its political consequences cannot vast difficulties along with great successes. The present forced be foreseen, and they almost never serve its goals. What did retreat secretes, as always, new difficulties, economic and political. Nicolaiev want? This we do not know. Very likely he wished to It is possible, however, to stat~ even at this moment with absolute protest against the party regime, the uncontrollability of the certainty that the political crisis engendered by bureaucratic abso­ bureaucracy, or the course to the Right. But what were the re­ lutism represents an immeasurably more immediate and acute suIts? The crushing of the Lefts and semi-Lefts by the bureau­ danger to the Soviet Union than all the disproportions and contra­ cracy, the intensification of the pressure and of uncontrollability, dictions of the transitional economy. and a preventive terror against all those who might be dissatisfied The Soviet Proletariat. The bureaucracy not only has no desire with the turn to the Right. In any case, the fact that Nicolaiev's to reform itself but it cannot reform itself. Only the vanguard of shot could have called forth such disproportionately great conse­ the proletariat could restore the Soviet state to health by ruthlessly quences is indubitable testimony that these "consequences" were cleansing the bureaucratic apparatus, beginning with the top. But already lodged in the political situation, and were only awaiting in order to do so, it must set itself on its feet, close its ranks, and a reason to break out into the open. reestablish, or more exactly, create anew the revolutionary party, Insurance On Two Fronts. The bureaucracy is entering the the Soviets, and the trade unions. Has it sufficient forces to meet Page 40 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March I9J5 sucll a task? the bureaucracy, stands out before 11S in all its nationalistic li'mita­ The working class in the U.S.S.R. has had an enormous .numer­ tion and its braggard falsity. We refer he-re, of course, not to th· ical growth. Its productive role has grown even more immeasur.. purely abstract possibility, or impossibility of building a socialist ably than its numbers. The social weight of the Soviet proletariat society within this or another geographic area-such a theme is today is tremendous. Its political weakness is conditioned by the for scholiasts;" we have in mind the vastly more immediate anJ variegated nature of its social composition; the lack of revolution­ concrete, living and historical, and not metaphysical, question: Is ary experience in the new generation; the decomposition of the it possible for an isolated Soviet state to maintain itself for ::OR party; and the interminable and heavy defeats of the world prole­ indeterminate period of time in an imperialist environment, within tariat. the constricting circle of Fascist counter-revolutions? The answer At the given stage, the last reason is the decisive one. The of Marxism is, No. The answer of the internal condition of the absence of international perspectives constrains the Russian U.S.S.R. is, No. The imperialist pressure from without; the ex workers to enclose themselves within the national shell and to penditure of forces and resources for defense; the impossibilitl of tolerate the theory of "socialism in one country", with the deifica­ establishing correct economic ties-these obstacles by themselves tion of the national bureaucracy, flowing from this theory. In are sufficiently profound and grave; but vastly more importa .• t order to restore confidence in their own forces, the Soviet workers than these is the fact that the defeats of the world revolution are must once more regain faith in the forces of the world proletariat. inevitably disintegrating the living bearer of the Soviet system, The Main Key to the Situation. The struggle between the forces the proletariat, compelling it to place its neck obediently under the within the U.S.S.R. as well as the zigzags of the Kremlin are, of yoke of the naUonal bureaucracy, which, in turn, is being corr\.loed course, of tremendous significance in respect to the hastening, or by all the vices of Bonapartism. Outside of world revolution thcre on the contrary to retarding the consummation. But the main is no salvation! key to the internal !,osition of the Soviet Union is today alrea,dy "Pessimism !"-the trained parrots of the socalled Comintf'.rll Dutside the Soviet Union. Should the western proletariat surren­ will say. And the hired charlatans, who have long since waved der the European continent to Fascism, the isolated and profoundly good by to revolution and Marxism will howl, "Defense of Capi­ degenerated workers' state will not maintain itself long. Not be­ talism t"On our part, we really view with no "optimiam" at· aU cause it must inevitably fall under the blows of military interven­ the Stalinist system of directing the workers' state, that is to say, tion: under a different set of conditions Soviet intervention can of suppressing the workers' state. The collapse of this system is lead, on the contrary, to the overturn of Fascism. But, right now, equally inevitable under all possible variations of the historical the internal contradictions of the U.S.S.R. have been brought to development. The Soviet bureaucracy, however, will fail to drag the point of extreme tension by the victories of the world counter­ the workers.' state down with itself into the abyss only in the revolution. The further spread of Fascism, by weakening still event that the European and world proletariat takes to the road further the resisting force of the Soviet proletariat, would render of offensive and victories. The first condition for success is the impossible the supplanting of the degenerated Bonapar"st system emancipation of the world vanguard from the deadly, numbing by a regenerated system of the Soviets. A political catastrophe jaws of Stalinism. This task will be solved despite all the ob­ would become inevitable, and in its wake would follow the restor­ stacles introduced by the powerful apparatus of lies and slanders. ation of private ownership of the means of production. In the interests of the world proletariat, and of the Soviet Union, "Socialism In One Country/' In the light of the present world onward! situation, the theory of "socialism in one country", this gospel of January 30, 1935 The Roosevelt "Security" Program

N THEIR analysis of current political events, Marxists are This confusion vitiates nine-tenths of the comment given by I susceptible to a dangerous error. This error consists in sup­ alleged Marxian publications to the acts of the government. Each posing that their position coincides concretely and immediately act that comes along is a "great blow at the working class"; the with the interests of the working class. Reasoning from this sup­ class analysis of the state shows that it is the business of the position, "they evaluate incorrectly what is actually going on, and government to strike great blows at the working class; therefore devise wholly unsuitable tactics to meet the real situation. The this act, whatever it may be, must be such a blow; and we are truth is that the Marxian position coincides with the interests of inclined to leave it at that. However true this may be historically, the working class neither concretely nor immediately, but abstract­ it is far from true on the surface or in the minds of most persons. ly and historically. The only final proof of the actual coincidence Marxists must show just why and how it is true, and must con­ will come if the working class makes the Marxist position its own, vince, not themselves-for it is to each other that they normally if it identifies its interests with the Marxian directives. Every day talk-but others. The Roosevelt social security program, now proves the importance of this distinction. For example, in the before Congress, is an admirable example. It is, of course, a blow Sacramento criminal syndicalism trial, Leo Gallagher, reasoning at the working class. But it takes more than dogmatic jargon to abstractly that it is a contest between the capitalist state and the prove this to a middle class suburbanite, who thinks it a big step working class, conducts the defense as if this were the case as toward socialism; or to a worker who believes he will get the actually present to the consciousness of workers. He moves in a security of unemployment insurance out of it; or, above all, to an vacuum, and the effect of his presentation is on the whole to pre­ unemployed worker on four dollar a week relief who is going to judice not merely the jury (thereby injuring the chances of the be raised to fifty a month. defendants) but the working masses of California as well. What Let us, in the first place, outline the program itself, to be able he ought to do, on the other hand, is to conduct the defense so to keep its main features clearly in mind. The program is confused, that the historical reality of the class opposition embodied in the and chaotically thrown together. The Administration apparently trial will become concretely and immediately real in the conscious­ counts on being able to iron it out in practise, if Congress grants ness of workers. When this is done, the class struggle is advanced the Executive control that is demanded. Nevertheless, the central a stage, though the text books remain unchanged. matters are established. March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 41

Th~ most grandiose section deals with unemployment relief The social democratic .surface is emphasized by the way in which policy. Here the Administration declares that it intends to elimi­ maternity and child welfare are dragged in with the rest. There nate the federal dole. Of the 5,ooo~000 now on federal relief, is nothing of them there but the name; there is not even a sugges­ 1,500,000 are to be sent back to state or local agencies as "un~m­ tion as to when or how they are to start operation; but the name ployable". The 3,500,000 remaining are to be given jobs at $50 is important. Old age insurance is shoved into a distant future, a month on public works. Four billion dollars are to be appropri­ with hardly more than a' gesture for the present; and unemploy­ ated to pay for the .public works, with an additional $880,000,000 ment insurance, too, is far enough away to be vague and safe. But to cover relief needs during the transfer from. dole to public they all appear, along with the public works. And if we look at works. The public works are to include a great variety of pro­ them as a whole, we see that these are the slogans of generations jects, from slum clearance and subsistence homesteaJs to refores­ of social democracy. tation and improvement of rivers and harbors. The money is to Anyone who read the issue of the New Leader the weekend after be raised on credit, with no increas~ in taxation. The whole the program was announced will realize how true this is. In full scheme is to be administered by the Executive,. with permissive headlines, the socialist party hailed the Roosevelt program as a legislation from Congress giving the Executive complete control. great victory for socialism. Here, they said, is the acceptance "in The next major part of the program deals with unemployment principle" of all we have stood for. Patience now, they suggest insurance. Here we discover that nothing at all is to begin until to their readers, and the practical working out of the principles 1936, and that the plan will not get genuinely started for several will follow, handed kindly down from the White House. The im­ years after that. The plan is supposed to work on a combined pression is confirmed by talking to middle class wiseacres, who see federal-state basis, though in effect in the hands of the states. A their beliefs in a socialist Washington substantiated, and sell their federal tax on industrial pay-rolls, 1 % at the beginning and in­ odd lot holdings on the stock market. creasing to 3% "as business improves" and is better able to carry And this. manreuvre is stili able to carry along the feelings of the bUf(Je~, is to be returned to each state that enacts its own un­ the majority of the people. The minds of the masses move. slowly employment bill. Thus each state has a wide leeway in setting up to self-consciousness. Marxists should not be deceived by their its own plan, details for which are not prescribed by the federal own analyses. Their audience is still decimally small, and Roose­ program. Benefits under the program are to be paid after an velt's program is a large enough straw for the moment. interval of ten weeks from the loss of job; are to continu~ at an But the relation of Roosevelt to Congress and to the rest of the extremely low rate (a maximum of $12 or $15 a week) for only country is altered from two years ago. This program is presented a couple of months; and are to be paid only to workers who can't at the beginning of the session not to lead Congress to action, but get jobs. This last provision, of great signifiance, is similar to a to prevent it from action. And only a program of this kind would provision in the public works program that bars from relief work do the job. There has been too much talk of Townsend Plans, all who can get jobs elsewhere. Share-Our-\Vealth, Social Security, Utopia, and what not. The Next comes old age insurance. This is in two parts. The first program had to be dressed up in reformist clothing to get through. deals with "the immediate problem" of the indigent old. Here it A minimum dole would not get by the many Congressmen who is proposed that the states enact old age pension laws providing ha ve learned in their constituencies how popular it is to spend lots what they like up to a maximum of $15 a month and that the of public money in the neighborhood. These had to be checked, federal government will contribute an equal amount to that paid and Roesevelt moved fast to check them, putting them on the by the states. The second is a long-time plan providing for the defensive. And such is the political backwardness of the masses, building up of old age pension reserves for each worker by equal so generally absent is a class point of view that could judge the contributions from the worker and the employer. real social meaning of the program, that Roosevelt can get away The program includes also certain paragraphs about sickness with it. and accident insurance, and maternity and child welfare. It does Another idea lurks in the program, contributed by the remnants not propose to do anything much about these now, but states that of the Brain Trust. They still hope that a public works program they are excellent ideas. For maternity and child welfare, an ini­ of this kind will revive business in the old way, both directly by tial appropriation of $1,000,000 is proposed. The Senate, with a providing a market for certain supplies used in the work, and generous gesture, has raised this to $1,500,000. indirectly through "cumulative reemployment". This latter idea It should be noticed that the program, as it is shaping up, ex­ has been developed into. a theory, according to which putting one cludes farm, domestic and professional workers from the provi­ man to work, through the materials he uses up and the additional sions of the unemployment insurance and old age insurance plans. con~modities he can buy, actually brings about reemployment for * * * * anywhere from one to three others. The truth is that probably Why does Roosevelt put forward this particular scheme at this about one-tenth of a man is cumulatively reemployed; but public particular time? There are a number of alternatives that he might works does always mean sounder profits for the companies that have chosen : to slide along on the current basis; to abandon public sell the supplies and materials. And this is not forgotten. works in favor of outright direct dole, as the Chamber of Com­ Much more -important, however, is the ability of the program to merce seems to want; to push the Lundeen Bill, or something of lower general wage scales. The tendency of wage scales under its character. Roosevelt's scheme is neither the least "expensive" capitalism, unless sustained by unions, to seek the lowest level is in b~.<;lgetary terms, nor the most; it does not entirely satisfy any inescapable. This is particularly important in the present case. gro~p either in Congress or the country. Let us answer the ques­ Many construction projects under the public works plan will em­ tion first from the Administration point of view, before attempting ploy workers whose "normal" prevailing wages are among the to trace somewhat deeper the social meaning and effects. highest. These-various branches of the building and construction The program, to begin with, carries on its surface th~ social industries-are, moreover, the backbone of the A. F. of L. Thus democratic marks that Roosevelt finds it necessary to attach to at .one and the same time the government, through the $50 monthly his acts during thes,e first years of his regime. We shall have no wage of the program, hits at the prevailing wage levels and at dole, but a real chance for the unemployed to rehabilitate them­ organized labor. Roosevelt's contention that the McCarran am­ selves with actual jobs on constructive public enterprises. We endment to substitute prevailing wages for the $50 a month would shall lay the foundations for the great social reforms that will give "take the heart out of the whole program", is understandable. security and peace of mind to the working masses of the country. Lastly, the part this program plays in Farley's patronage struc- Page 42 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Mar.ch 1935 ture should not be underemphasized. Farley has been building his payments, will, in the administrative changes involved, give an party machine more skillfully and ruthlessly than perhaps anyone opportunity to bi eak down relief levels that have become more or has done before in American history. And here will be $4,880,- less standardized in many localities. 000,000 to reward friends and punish enemies. Second, the program will aid in lowering the general level of * * * * wages, particularly in industries where the prevailing level is It may be asked whether the program is workable even from the higher than the average. The effect of the low wages to be paid point of view of the Administration, and it may very readily be on public works in bringing this about has already been stated. answered that it is not. In the first place, it will not go through The unemployment and old age insurance plans also, however, Congress unscathed. Amendments of a dozen varieties are being contribute to the same effect. The contributions by the employee proposed, and many of them energetically pushed by one faction under the old age insurance plan will be a form of wage-cut, dis­ Or another. The Senate is having a great deal of trouble over the guised, but none the less real in diminishing the pay envelope. McCarran amendment to provide prevailing wages in the place of The pay-roll taxes called for by the unemployment insurance plan the $50 a month provision for jobs on public works. There are will be compensated for by the employers by drives to lower wages complaints about the unlimited authority that the program turns and raise prices proportionately, the latter as well as the former over to the President. I believe, however, that in the end the pro­ acting to reduce real wages. gram will go through with its major lines substantially unchanged. Third, both the public works and the unemployment and old age The character of the opposition to it is too inchoate to agree on a insurance plans work as strike breakers. The unemployed worker clear-cut substitute. This is brought out with particular clarity will be immediately confronted with the following situation: if he in connection with the McCarran amendment, which is chiefly doesn't take a public works job, he will be cut off from relief; but supported by the die-hard Republicans-supported, of course, not if any job in "private industry" is open-as such jobs become open, because they are in favor of the higher wages, but because they for example, in strikes-he will run the risk by not taking it of want a chance to vote against the President. The result of the losing the public works job also; thus, with no relief to turn to, he opposition will be merely to make more confused a bill that was will have the de facto choice between strikebreaking and starva­ sufficiently 'chaotic to begin with. tion. Under the unemploment and old age insurance plaits, the There are also certain questions of constitutionality which will worker will of course run the risk of cutting himself off from all effectively interfere with smooth working. These arise especially possible "benefits" by striking. in connection with the unemployment insurance scheme: the pay­ But the most significant general aspect of the whole program is roll tax, by which this is to be fianced, may be found an invasion the rapid stride forv.;ard it makes in the consolidation of bourgeois of the federal government into intra-state business. This possibil­ rule which, under Roosevelt, is preparing the United States for ity will allow employers to prevent even these meager unemploy­ the comparatively smooth transition to Fascism. This can be ment insurance plans from getting into operation without long Drought out in a number of ways. For example: Under Fascism; court battles. the g-overnment must represent as fully as possible the class inter­ More significant is the absurdity of the whole conception of est of the big capitalists as a whole, rather than the interests of handling relief. The Administration reasons: there are now 5,000,- any particular section or group of the capitalists. This contrasts 000 persons getting federal relief (representing in their families with the situation often possible under laissez-faire economy and 20,000,000 persons); 1,500,000 will be returned to local relief rolls parliamentary democracy, when the government, while representing as unemployable; 3,500,000 will be put to work on the government the capitalist class in general, may nevertheless at a given moment projects. To this it may be replied, first, that local relief rons be in a special sense the organ of a particular section (industrial.. cannot carry the 1,500,000 without federal aid. Second, 3,500,000 ists, bankers, those needing a big tariff, those needing a smaller cannot be put to work at once when there is no coordinated plan tariff, etc.). The decline of capitalism does not permit the degree of public works to take care of them. This second point the Ad­ of internecine warfare among capitalists themselves that was for­ ministration seems to recognize by insisting on a two-year limit to merly allowable. It may be remarked in passing that this is the the appropriation instead of the one-year limit within which it is reason why large· sections of the bourgeoisie oppose Fascism up theoretically supposed to be used. To these must be added an to the last moment, and why Fascism takes occasional measures additional consideration. There are at least 12,000,000 unem­ against the immediate interests of any or even all groups of the ployed, that is 7,000,000 more than are now receiving federal re­ bourgeoisie. The ability of the totalitarian state to act thus, a' lief. These 7,000,000 now live from savings, loans, help from agent of the big bourgeoisie as a whole and independent in t·arge relatives, occasional local relief, temporary jobs, etc. These means measure of the intra-bourgeois quarrels, is based in part upon are gradually being exhausted. There must be inevitably expected shifts in the economic foundation of the state apparatus. It means, an increase in relief applications even if there is some upturn in for one thing, that the state becomes increasingly and more direct­ employment. The Administration program makes no provision ly involved in the basic economic structure of the country. Thus, for this whatsoever. We may conclude in general that the Ad­ we discover, that through the R.F.C. the U.S. government has ministration statement that jobs on public works can be substituted tied itself to the banking system, e~pecially the large banks (by for the dole is necessarily false. The necessity for the dole will, the purchase of preferred stocks in the banks-often against the in fact, remain so long as capitalism lasts. desires of the banks concerned, by loans against frozen assets, * * • • etc. ), to the railroads, insurance companies, etc. Roosevelt is now It is necessary to enquire further into the actual social meaning engaged in entangling the government with the utility system, by and effects of the Administration program. the big government built dams, the T.V.A., and the rest. The To begin with, it means a hardening in the distribution of cash government entered ship and airplane building, and ocean trans­ payments. In some cases the $50 a month paid on the public port some time ago, on a large scale at the time of the war. Now, works jobs· will be less than what is now received by families in w.ith this neW relief program, the government becomes more out­ the form of rent vouchers, cash relief, electricity and gas pay­ standingly than ever the greatest employer of labor, the dominant ments, etc. The indirect effect will be more widespread. The "monopoly trust" of the country, and intertwines itself with the "principles" of returning unemployables to local relief rolls and thousand and one businesses implicated in the public works pro­ giving jobs to all others) though they cannot work to that end in jects. practise, will provide the basis for a general slashing of relief The political trend of the new program is analogous. The THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 43 wbole plan is to be turned over to the Executive, to be arranged, since it takes no notice of necessary parts of a workers' security allotted, administered by what amounts to Executive decree, with program without which unemployment insurance at the present no legislative check. The legislative branch of the state continues time would mean little. its withdrawal toward totalitarian obscurity. Parliamentarism, The immediate requirements for a rounded workers' security the political luxury of ascendant capitalism, moves further toward program are included in the plan recently adopted by the National its decline. Unemployed League. In outline, these are as follows: Lastly, there should be noticed a feature of the program that I. Adequate cash relief. No plan from now until the end of has been strangely ignored by both the capitalist and the working capitalism will mean anything if this is not a first and paramount class press. The program quite openly establishes the principle of provision. forced labor. The unemployed worker will not be given.a "choice" 2. A coordinated plan of public works. These should include between relief and the $50 a month job on public works. He will above all workers' housing projects, which provide the two-fold take the job or starve. And he will take the job that is assigned need of giving work, and something worth while to workers when to him, whatever it may be, and however little fitted he may be they are completed. The fight for public works should include the for it. From this to labor camps is not so long a step. fight to make jobs on them pay not merely the prevailing wage, * * * * but where the prevailing wage is low, to pay more, and thus to A question remains which I cannot take up at length in this make public works a means of Jifting instead of lowering the article. What kind of workers' security program should Marxists general wage rates. A minimum of $30 weekly and a maximum oppose to the plan of the Administration? This is by no means of 30 hours a week should be demanded on all public works pro­ an easy question to answer. We must start with the recognition jects. The public works program should not be left to Executive that only a workers' state can solve the problem of unemployment discretion, but should be made mandatory. An initial appropria­ and security in general; and with the additional recognition that tion of ten billion dollars to be spent within one year should be capitalism in decline is increasingly powerless to grant concessions the beginning. This should be financed through the help of taxes to the working class. We must also keep in mind that, for Marx­ on the higher incomes, on inheritances, on corporate profits and ists, a social security program is not a mere piece of legislation to surpluses. Though these taxes would not cover the entire amount, ate filed in Congress; but a class slogan to promote independent they would be sufficient to prevent inflation by providing both for working class mass activity in its support, and to seek immediate the interest on bond offerings and an adequate sinking fund. gains only as part of the broader aim of weakening the structure 3. The universal 30-hour week. The 30-hour week is an inte­ of capitalism and organizing the working class forces in a revo­ gral part of any security program at the present time, and the fight utionary direction. for it should be altered from resolutions and occasional speeches This suggests at once a major critIcism of the Lundeen bill, to vigorous working. class action. The fight for it must, of course, which is offered as a working class answer to the Roosevelt pro­ be accompanied by the fight to prevent a compensating speedup, gram. The fight for this bill has been almost entirely reformist and a further struggle not merely to permit no reduction in wages. and parliamentary in character, and thus, even if it were passed but to raise the minimum wage generally, as on the public works (which it will not be), it would not represent an important victory projects, to the $30 level. for the working class. Even from a parliamentary standpoint, 4. Adequate unemployment insurance. The unemployment in­ there are serious objections to the Lundeen bill. It of course surance should be federal, not state, and should be financed in the avoids most of the directly anti-working class aspects of the Roose­ same general manner as the public works program, with no em­ velt program. But it i~ an odd and confused mixture. In some ployee contributions whatever. of its provisions it is openly unconstitutional (not necessarily bad, 5. An immediate 'credit of five billion dollars to the Soviet since mass pressure could enforce a lenient interpretation of the Union, to be spent in this country for the purchase of goods manu­ Constitution) ; whereas in others it leans over backwards to remain factured here. This credit, while proving one of the most effec­ within the Constitution. It offers a plan of raising the money by tive means for defending the Soviet Union at present in the power taxation, to avoid inflation, which would not raise the necessary of the American masses, would at the same time be a far more Dloney. The kinds of taxation are correct enough in principle, genuine stimulus to reemployment, particularly in the basic indus­ but the bill should not pretend to provide money that any statisti­ tries, than any of the cloudy schemes of the Administration. cian can prove it does not. And, lastly, the bill is incomplete, John WEST Lessons of the Paris Commune EACH TIME that we study the history of the Commune we the proletariat of Paris to place itself at a single stroke at the see it from a new aspect, thanks to the experience acquired by head of the workers of the country in their struggle against all the later revolutionary struggles and above all by the latest revo­ the forces of the past, against Bismarck as well as against Thiers. lutions, not only the Russian but the German and Hungarian But the power fell into the hands of the democratic praters, the revolutions. The Franco-German war was a bloody explosion, deputies of Paris. The Parisian proletariat had neither a party, harbinger of an immense world slaughter, the Commune of Paris nor leaders to whom it would have been closely bound by previous a lightning harbinger of a world proletarian revolution. struggles. The petty bourgeois patriots who thought themselves The Commune shows us the heroism of the working masses, socialists and sought the support of the workers did not really their capacity to unite into a single bloc, their talent to sacrifice have any confidence in themselves. They shook the proletariat's themselves in the name of the future, but at the same time it shows faith in itself, they were continually in quest of celebrated lawyers, us the incapacity of the masses to choose their path, their indeci­ of journalists, of deputies, whose baggage consisted only of a sion in the leadership of the movement, their fatal penchant to dozen vaguely revolutionary phrases, in order to entrust them come to a halt after the first successes, thus permitting the enemy with the leadership of the movement. to regain its breath, to reestablish its position. The reason why Jules Favre, Picard, Garnier-Pages and Co. The Commune came too late. It had all the possibilities of took power in Paris on September 4 is the same as that which taking the power on September 4 and that would have permitted permitted Paul-Boncour, A. Varenne, Renaudel and numerous Page 44 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

others to be for a time the masters of the party of the proletariat. was. the possibility of retreating-a few hundred or even a few The .Renaudels and the Boncours and even· the· Longuets and dozen devoted workers, and given them the following instructi6ns: the Pressemanes are much closer, by virtue of their sympathies, enhance the discontent of the soldiers against the officers, profit "by their intellectual habits and their conduct~ to the Jules Favres and the first favorable psychological moment to free the soldiers f.rom the Jules Ferrys than to the revolutionary proletariat. Their so­ their officers and bring them back to Paris to unite with" the peeple. cialist phraseology is nothing but an historic mask which permits This could easily have been realized, according to the admissions them to impose themse'lves upon the masses. And it is just because of Thiers' supporters themselves. Nobody even thought of it. Favre, Simon, Picard and the others used and abused a democra­ Nor was there anybody to think of it. In the midst of great events, tico-liberal phraseology that their sons and their grandsons are moreover, such decisions can be adopted only by a revolutionary obliged to resort to a· socialist phraseology. But the sons and the party which looks forward to a revolution, prepares for it, does ,grandsons have remained worthy of their fathers and continue not lose its head, by a party which is accustomed to having a their work. And when it will be necessary to decide not the ques­ rounded view and is not afraid to act. tion of the composition of a ministerial clique but the much more And a party of action is just what the French proletariat did important question of knowing what class in France must take not have. power, Renaudel, Va renne, Longuet and their similars will be in The Central Committee of the National Guard is in effect a the camp of ~iillerand-collaborator· of Galliffet, the butcher of Council of Deputies of the armed workers and the petty bour­ the Commune. . . . When the revolutionary babblers of the salons geoisie. Such a Council, elected directly by the masses who have and of parliament find themselves face to face, in real life, with taken the revolutionary road, represents an excellent apparatus of the revolution, they never recognize it. action. But at the same time, and just because of its immediate The workers' party-the real one-is not a machine for parlia­ and elementary connection with the masses who are in the state mentary manreuvres, it is the accumulated and organized experi­ in which the revolutionary has found them, it reflects not only all ence of the proletariat. It is only with the aid of the party, which the strong sides but also the weak sides of the masses, and it rests upon the whole history of its past, which foresees theoreti­ reflects at first the weak sides still more than it does the strong: cally the paths of development, all its stages, and which extracts it manifests the spirit of indecision, of waiting, the tendency to be from it the necessary formul~ of action, that the proletariat frees inactive after the first successes. itself from the need of .always . recommencing its history: its The Central Committee of the National Guard needed to be hesitations, its lack of decision, its mistakes. led. It was indispensable to have an organization incarnating the The proletariat of Paris did not have such a party. The bour­ political experience of the proletariat and always present-not only geois socialists with whom the Commune swarmed, raised their in the Central Committee, but in the legions, in the batallions, in eyes to heaven, waited for a miracle· or else a prophetic word, the deepest sectors of the French proletariat. By means of the hesitated, and during that time the masses groped about and lost Councils of Deputies-in the given case they were organs of the their heads because of the indecision of some and the fantasy of National Guard-the party could have been in continual contact others. The result was that the revolution broke out in their very with the masses, known their state of mind; its leading center could midst, too late, and Paris was encircled. Six months elapsed be­ each day put forward a slogan which, through the medium of the fore the proletariat had reestablished in its memory the lessons of party's militants, would have penetrated into the masses, uniting past revolutions, of battles of yore, of the reiterated betrayals of their thought and their will. democracy-and it seized power. Hardly had the government fallen back to Versailles than the These six months proved to be an irreparable loss. I f the cen­ National Guard hastened to unload its responsibility, at the very tralized party of revolutionary action had been found at the head moment when this responsibility was enormous. The Central Com­ of the proletariat of France in September 1870, the whole history mittee imagined "legal" elections to the Commune. It entered into of France and with it the whole history of humanity would have negotiations with the mayors of Paris in order to cover itself, from taken another direction. the Right, with "legality·'. If the power was found in the hands of the proletariat of Paris Had a violent attack been prepared against Versailles at the on March 18, it was not because it had been deliberately seized, same time, the negotiations with the mayors would have beep. a but because its enemies had quitted Paris. ruse fully justified from the military standpoint and in conformity These latter were losing ground continuously, the workers de­ with the goal. But in reality, these negotiations were being. con­ spised and detested them, the petty bourgeoisie no longer had ducted only in order to avert the struggle by some miracle or confidence in them and the big bourgeoisie feared that they were other. The petty bourgeois radicals and the socialistic idealists, no longer capable of defending it. The soldiers were hostile to respecting "legality" and the men who embodied a portion of the the officers. The government fled Paris in order to concentrate "legal" state-the deputies, the mayors, etc.-hoped at the bottom its forces elsewhere. And it was then that the proletariat became of their souls that Thiers would halt respectfully before revolu­ master of the situation. tionary Paris the minute the latter covered itself with the "legal~' But it understood this fact only on the morrow. The· revolution Commune. fell upon it unexpectedly. Passivity and indecision were supported in this case by the sacred This first success was a new source of passivity. The enemy principle of federation and autonomy. Paris, you see, is only one had fled to Versailles. Wasn't that a victory? At that moment commune among many other communes. Paris wants to impose the governmental band could have been crushed almost without nothing upon anyone; it does not struggle for the dictatorsliip, the spilling of blood. In Paris, all the ministers" with Thiers at unless it be for the "dictatorship of example". their head, could have been taken prisoner. Nobody would have In sum, it was nothing but an attempt to replace the proletari2.::' raised a hand to defend them. It was not done. There was no revolution, which was developing, by a petty bourgeois reform: organization of a centralized party, having a rounded view of communal autonomy. The real revolutionary task consisted of things and special organs Jor realizing its decisions. assuring the proletariat the power all ove! the country. Paris 'had The debris of the infantry did not want to fall back to Versailles. to serve as its base, its support, its stronghold. And to attain this The thread which tied the officers and the soldiers was pretty goal, it was necessary to vanquish Versailles without the loss of tenuous. And had there been a directing party center at Paris, time and to send agitators, organizers, and armed forces through­ it would have incorporated into the retreating armies-since there out France. It was necessary to enter into contact with sympa- :March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 4S thizers, to strengthen the hesitators and to shatter the opposition riat. The attempt fails. The government flees in panic from of the ~dvers(l r;". Tm:tead of th!s policy of offensive and ag:;ression Paris to Versailles. The field is clear. But it is only on the which was the only thing that could save the situation, the leaders morrow that the proletariat understands that it is the master of of Paris attempted to seclude themselves in their communal auto­ Paris. The "leaders" are in the wake of events, they record them nomy: they will not attack the others if the others do not attack when the latter are already a~complished, and they do everything them; each town has its sacred right of self-government. This in their power to blunt the revolutionary edge. idealistic chaUer-of the same gender as mundane anarchism­ In Petrograd, the events developed differently. The party moved c'Jvrred up in reality a cowarc:tice in face of revolutionary action firmly, resolutely, to the seizure of power, having its men every­ which should have been conducted incessantly up to the very end, where, consolidating each position, extending every fissure between for otherwise it should not have been begun. . . . the workers and the garrison on the one side and the government The hostility to capitalist organization-a heritage of petty on the other. bourgeois localism and autonomism-is without a doubt the weak The armed demonstration of the July days is a vast reconnoiter­ side of a certain section of the French proletariat. Autonomy for ing conducted by the party to sound the degree of close contact the districts, for the wards, for the batallions, for the towns, is between the masses and the power of resistance of the enemy. The the ~upreme guarante~ of real activity and individual independence reconnoitering is transformed into a struggle of outposts. We for certain revolutionists. But that is a great mistake which cost are thrown back, but at the same time the action establishes. a the French proletariat dearly. connection between the party and the depths of the masses. The Under the form of the "struggle against despotic centralism" months of August, September and October see a powerful revo­ and against "stifling" discipline, a fight takes place for the self­ lutionary flux. The party profits by -it and augments considerably preservation of various groups and sub-groupings of the working its points of support in the working class and the garrison. Later, class, for their petty interests, with their petty ward leaders and the harmony between the conspirative preparations and the mass t :leir locai oracles. The entire \vorking class, while preserving its action takes place almost automatically. The Second Congress of cdtural originality and its political nuances, can act methodically the Soviets is fixed for November 7. All our preceding agitation ;.nd firmly. without remaining in the tow of events, and directing was to lead to the seizure of power by the Congress. Thus, the each t:me its mortal blows against the \reak sectors of its enemies, overturn was adapted in advance to November 7. This fact was on the condition that at its head, above the wards, the districts, the well known and understood by the enemy. Kerensky and his coun­ groups, there is an apparatus which is centralized and bound to­ cillors could not fail to make efforts to consolidate themselves, to gether by an iron discipline. The tendency towards particularism, however small an extent, in Petrograd for the decisi ve moment. whatever the form it may assume. is a heritage of the dead past. Also, they stood in need of shipping out of the capital the most The sooner French communist-socialist communism and syndical­ revolutionary sections of the garrison. We on our part profited ist communism-etrtancipates itself from it, the better it will be by this attempt by Kerensky in order to make it the source of a for the proletarian revolution. new conflict which had a decisive importance. We openly ac­ * * * * cused the Kerensky government-our accusation subsequently The party does not create the revolution at will, it does not found a written confirmation in an official document-of having choose the moment for seizing power as it likes, but it intervenes planned the removal of a third of the Petrograd garrison not out actively in the events, penetrates at every moment the stat~ of of military considerations but for the purpose of counter-revolu­ mind of tht,! l"~vulutionary masses and evaluates the power of re­ tionary combinations. This conflict bound us still more closely to sistance of the enemy, and thus determines the most favoratle the garrison and put before the latter a well-defined task, to sup­ moment for decisive action. This is the most difficult side of its port the Soviet Congress fixed for November 7. And since the task. The party has no decision that is valid for every case. government insisted-even if in afeeble enough manner-that the Needed are a correct theory, an intimate contact with the masses, garrison be sent off, we created in the Petrograd Soviet, already the comprehension of the situation, a revolutionary perception, a in our hands, a Revolutionary War Committee, on the pretext of great resoluteness. The more profoundly a revolutionary party verifying the military reasons for the governmental plan. penetrates into all the domains of the proletarian struggle. the Thus we had a purely military organ, standing at the head of more unified it is by the unity of goal and discipline, the speedier the Petrograd garrison, which was in reality a legal organ of and better will it arrive at resolving its task. armed insurrection. At the same time we designated (commun­ The difficulty consists in having this organization of a centra!­ ist) commissars in all the military units, in the military stores, etc. ized party, internally welded by an iron discipline, linked intimatel,:.' The clandestine military organization accomplished specific techni­ with the movement of the masses, with its ebbs and flows. The cal tasks and furnished the Revolutionary War Committee with conquest of power cannot be achieved save on the condition of a fully trustworthy militants for important military tasks. The es­ powerful revolutionary pressure of the toiling masses. But in this sential work concerning the preparation, the realization and the act the element of preparation is entirely inevitable. The better armed insurrection took place openly, and so methodically and the .party will understand the conjuncture and the moment, the naturally that the bourgeoisie, led by Kerensky, did not clearly better the bases of resistance will be prepared, the better the forct": understand what was taking place under their very eyes. (In and the roles will be distributed, the surer will be the success and Paris, the proletat"iat understood only on the following day that it the less victims wiU it cost. The correlation of a carefully pre­ had been really victorious-a victory which it had not, moreover, pared action and a mass movement is the politico-strategical task deliberately sought-that it was master of the situation. In Petro­ of the taking of power. grad, it was the contrary. Our party, basing itself on the workers The comparison of March 18, 1871 with November 7, 1917 is and the garrison, had already seized the power, the bourgeoisie very instructive from this point of view. In Paris, there is an passed a fairly tranquil riight and learned only on the following absolute lack of initiative for action on the part of the leadillg morning that the helm of the country was in the hands of its grave­ revolutionary circles. The proletariat, armed by the bourgeois digger.) government, is in reality master of the town, has all the materia,l As to strategy. there were many differences of opinion in our means of power-cannon and rifles-at its disposal, but it is not party. a ware .of it. The bourgeoisie makes an attempt to retake the A part of the Central Committee declared itself, as is known, weapon. of the giant: it wants to steal the cannon of the proleta- against the taking of power, believing that the moment had not THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March [935 yet arrived, that Petrograd was detached from the rest of the subsequently formulated the demand that the command of the Na­ country, the proletariat from the peasantry, etc. tional Guard, from top to bottom, ought to be elected by the Other comrades believed that we were not attributing sufficient National Guardsmen themselves. That is where the Central Com­ importance to the elements of military com plot. One of the mem­ mittee of the National Guard found its support. bers of the Central Committee demanded in October the surround­ This question must be envisaged from two sides: from the poH­ ing of the Alexandrine Theater where the Democratic Conference tical and the military sides, which are interlinked but which shou14 was in session, and the proclamation of the dictatorship of the be distinguished. The political task consisted in purging the Na­ Centra-} Committee of the party. He said: in concentrating our tional Guard of the counter-revolutionary command. Complete agitation as well as our preparatory military work for the moment electibility was the only mean's for it, the majority of the National of the Second Congress, we are showing our plan to the adver­ Guard being composed of workers and revolutionary petty bour­ sary, we are giving him the possibility of preparing himself and geois. And in addition, the motto "electibility of the command", @ven of dealing us a preventive blow. But there is no doubt that being extended also to the infantry, Thiers would have been de­ the attempt at a military complot and the surrounding of the Alex­ prived at a single stroke of his -essential weapon, the counter­ andrine Theater would have been a fact too aolien to the develop­ revolutionary officers. In order to realize this plan, a party organ­ lI1ent of the events, that it would have been an event disconcerting ization, having its men in all the military units, was required. In to the masses. Even in the Petrograd Soviet, where our faction a word, electibility in this case had as its immediate task not to dominated, such an enterprise, anticipating the logical development give good commanders to the batallions, but to liberate them from. of the struggle, would have provoked great disorder at that mo­ commanders devoted to the bourgeoisie. Electibility served as a ment, above all among the garrison where there were hesitant and wedge for splitting the army into two parts, along class lines. not very trustful regiments, primarily the cavalry regiments. It Thus did matters occur with us in the period of Kerensky, abm-e would have been much easier for Kerensky to crush a complot all on the eve of October. unexpected by the masses than to attack the garrison consolidating But the liberation of the army from the old commanding appar­ itseJf more and more on its positions: the defense of its inviola­ atus inevitably involves the weakening of organizational cohesion bility in the name of the future Congress of the Soviets. There­ and the diminution of combative power. As a rule, the elected fore the majority of the Central Committee rejected the plan to command is pretty weak from the technico-military standpoint and !Surround the Democratic Conference and it was right. The con­ with regard to the maintenance of order and of discipline. Thus, juncture was very well judged: the armed insurrection, almost at the moment when the army frees itself from the old counter­ without bloodshed, triumphed exactly on the date, fixed in advance revolutionary command which oppressed it, the question arises of and openly, for the convening of the Second Soviet Congress. giving it a revolutionary command capable of fulfilling its mission. This strategy cannot, however, become a general rule, it requires And this question can by no means be resolved by simple elections. specific conditions. Nobody believed any longer in the war with Before wide masses of soldiers acquire the experience of weI] the Germans, and the less revolutionary soldiers did not want to choosing and selecting com!11anders, the revolution will be beaten quit Petrograd for the front. And even if the garrison as a whole by the enemy which is guided in the choice of its command by the was on the side of the workers for this single reason, it became experience of centuries. The methods of shapeless democracy stronger in its point of view to the extent that Kerensky's machina­ (simple electibility) must be supplemented and to a certain extent tions were revealed. But this mood of the Petrograd garrison had replaced by measures of selection from above. The revolution a still deeper cause in the situation of the peasant class and in the must create an organ composed of experienced, reliable organizers, development of the imperiarlrist war. Had there been a split in the in which one can have absolute confidence, give it full powers to garrison and had Kerensky obtained the possibility of support choose, designate. and educate the command. If particularism and from a few regiments, our plan would have failed. The elements democratic autonomism are extremely dangerous to the proletarian of purely military complot (conspiracy and great speed of action) revolution in general, they are ten· times more dangerous to the would have prevailed. It would have been necessary, of course, army. We saw that in the tragic example of the Commune. to choose another moment for the insurrection. The Central Committee of the National Guard drew its author­ The Lommune also had the complete .possibility of winning even ity from democratic electibility. At the moment when the C~ntral the peasant regiments, for the latter had lost all confidence and Committee needed to develop to the maximum its initiative in the al1 respect for the power and the command. Yet it undertook offensive, deprived of the leadership of a proletarian party, it lost nothing towards this end. The fault here is not in the relation­ its head, hastened to transmit its powers to the representatives of ships of the peasant and the working classes, but in the revolu­ the Commune which required a broader democratic basis. And i1 tionary strategy. was a great mistake in that period -to play with elections. But once \Vhat will be the situation in this regard in the European coun­ the elections had been held and the Commune brought together, it tries in the present epoch? It is not· easy to foretell anything on was necessary to concentrate everything in the Commune at a this score. Yet, with the events developing slowly and the bour­ single blow and to have it create an· organ possessing real power geois governments exerting all their efforts to utilize past experi­ to reorganize the National Guard. This was not the case. By the ences, it may be foreseen that the proletariat, in order to attract side of the elected Commune there remained the Central Commit­ the sympathies of the soldiers, will have- to overcome a great and tee; the elected character of the latter gave ita political authority well organized resistance at a given moment. A skillful and well­ thanks to which it was able to compete with the Commune. But timed attack on the part of the revolutioti will then be necessary. at the same time that deprived it of the energy and the firmness The duty of the party is to prepare itself for it. That is just why necessary in the purely military questions which; after the organiz­ it must maintain and develop its character of a centralized organ­ ation of the Commune, justified its existence. Electibility, demCl­ ization, which openly guides the revolutional'y movement of the cratic methods, are but one of the instruments in the hands of the masses and is at the same time a clandestine apparatus of the proletariat and its party. Electibility can' in no wise be a fetish, armed insurrection. a remedy for all evils. The .methods of electibility must be com­ * * * * bined with those of appointments. The power of the Commune The question of the electibility of the command was one of the came from the elected National Guard. But once created, the reasons of the conflict between the National Guard and Thiers. Commune should have reorganized with a strong hand the N a­ Paris refused to accept the command designated by Thiers. Var1in tiona} Guard, from top to bottom, given it reliable leaders an.t March [935 THE NEW INTERN ATION AL Page 47 established a regime of very strict discipline. The Commune did revolutionary proletarians of France must be severer towards their not do 'this, being itself deprived of a powerful revolutionary party and unmask more pitilessly any non-conformity between directing center. It too was crushed. word and action. The French workers have need of an organiza­ We can thus thumb the whole history of the Commune, page by tion, strong as steel, with leaders controlled by the masses at every page, and we will find in it one single lesson: a· strong party lead­ new stage of the revolutionary movement. ership is needed. More than any other proletariat has the French How much time will history afford us to prepare ourselves? We made sacrifices for the revolution. But also more than any other do not know. For fifty years the French bourgeoisie has retained has it been duped. Many times has the bourgeoisie dazzled it with the power in its hands after having elected the Third Republic on all the colors of republicanism, of radicalism, of socialism, so as the bones of the Communards. Those fighters of '71 were not always to fasten upon it the fetters of capitalism. By means of lacking in heroism. What they lacked was clarity in method and its agents, its lawyers and its journalists, the bourgeoisie has put a centralized leading organization. That is why they were van­ forward a whole mass of democratic, parliamentary, autonomist quished. Half a century elapsed before the proletariat of France formulre which are nothing but impediments on the feet of the could pose the question of avenging the death of the Communards. proletariat, hampering its forward movement. But this time, the action will be firmer, more concentrated. The The temperament of the French proletariat is a revolutionary heirs of Thiers will have to pay the historic debt in full. lava. But this lava is now covered with the ashes of skepticism­ Leon TROTSKY result of numerous deceptions and disenchantments. Also, the ZLATOOST, February 4, 192 1. The Housing Question i.n America days at a time. Of all the modern conveniences such as steam 1. What the Problem Looks Like heat, hot water, bath, etc., the only one usually present in the city slum is electricity. In short, a slum house is one that lacks every­ THERE ARE today in the United States approximately 30 thing that goes to make up "decent living". million homes housing primarily one family per home, but for N e'lfJ York City: A Record of Slum Growth N of Slum Clear­ the poorer families running into the 2, 3 and even more families ance. One hundred years· ago the elders of N ew York City, over­ per single dwelling unit. Of" the total, 13 million. do not come up awed at the condition of the then existing slums, ordered "some­ to the standard of minimum decency* and should be rebuilt or thing done about them". The investigation of the year 1837 was replaced. In addition, there exists an actual shortage of 5 million the result. It was a most gratifying investigation indeed; far dwellings that are needed to accomodate those families with 8 or Superior to many that have followed, and. then again hardly up to 10 persons squeezed into 3 room apartments or those staying with the level of other investigations that were fathered by different the mother-in-law. The problem of the housing shortage and horror-stricken gentlemen in other years. For 1837 marked but a decent housing is no local problem; the large city as well as the beginning, and perhaps not even that, were one interested enough small has its problem; the farm as well as the village. From the in the historical aspects of the problem to delve further back in Mexican shacks in lower California to the East Side ghetto of the records .. Investigation followed investigation with ever-increas­ New York City the crying need of a "decent'" house makes itself ing tempo until the year 1930 brought with it a veritable deluge of felt wherever the poorly-paid city worker or mortgage-burdened investigations and committees. hillside farmer continues to exist. However, houses built in 1837 in New York are still standing The city slum of course is the most obvious of the non-decent today, and considered "home" by. many an underpaid worker. type of home, and should be con'sidered first in any discussion of More than half the tenements "condemned" by one of the official the problem as it exists today. All other phases, although impor­ investigation committees in the year 1885 are still housing human tant in their own right, must naturally give way before the burn­ beings. Between 200,000 and 250,coo of the windowless rooms ing need for slum clearance. attacked in 1901 (the year of the enactment of the New Tenament What is a slum house? It is something for which a proper de­ House Code) h~ve continued to remain without the benefit of air scription or definition would require the use of all five senses. An or sunshine to this very day. At, least 23,000 people were living investigator may' find any type of human misery he desires. "A 3 in basements in 1932-God only knows how this figure has in­ room apartment will house II people, the baby sleeping in a cheap creased statistically during the past two years. All told, there are baby carriage; the husband, the wife, and the next youngest child "living" today in the slums of New York City about one and a half in a three-quarter bed in a bedroom; 5 older children in another million individuals. three-quarter bed in a dining-room; and a boarder on a folding cot An example of how municipal regulation proceeds in the cor­ in a kitchen." The bedroom mayor may not have windows. The rection of abuses may be deduced from the report of a single year. likelihood is that all rooms are dark, and what windows they do Of the 57,233 buildings reported in 1930 for violation of the "new have face on narrow alleys. Air will be anything from foul to law", 40,170 were dismissed, 27,063 were "filed", and 19,441 were Inerely stale. All types and breeds of vermin from the tiny ant to pending at the end of the year. Of the 2,925 brought to court, the large cat-sized rat will roam through the building at will; 306 were dismissed by the magistrate, 1,976 ended in suspended cockroaches and bedbugs will infest not merely the' furniture, but sentences, and in 295 cases only were fines levied. These violations the very structure of the bwlding itself. Baths will not exist. were of all types, from poor plumbing to lack of proper fire pre­ Toilets will be shared by from 2 tenants on the floor· to an entire ventives. The result of such a record is obvious: continued -un­ house-in which case they will be situated in the yard. 'Vinter sanitary conditions and fire-trap dwellings. Last year alone 52 most likely brings with it a freezing of the water pipes, leaving persons lost their lives in old law tenement fires. entire houses without water for drinking or drainage purposes for The inauguration of the "liberal, labor-loving" LaGuardia as ill Dr. E. E. Evans gives the fol- one room per person, fresh air, mayor of N ew York City changed conditions not a whit. He has lowing modest enough definition sunlight, dry walls. ~ath, cen­ actually cut the appropriations of the tenement house inspection of ~he indefinite term "decent tral heating, modern kltchen are housing": a home with a private not included in his minima. force, leaving the staff very much under-manned. TheLaGuardia toilet, running water, electricity, policy can be summed up in the following quotation from a recent Page 48 THE NEW INTERN ATION AL March 1935

letter of his tenement house commissioner, Langdon W. Post: homes had bath, toilet, running water, gas and electricity; 39% "At the present time, therefore, a wholesale enforcement of the had gas or electric light only, and 5.4% had running water only. letter of the law would put something like one million [other The room density in these "country towns" would begin at two sources estimate one and a half to two million. H.S.] people on the and have the sky as a limit-or the undertaker. streets with no possible place to live." Mr. Post continues in this The Farm. Fifigures for the necessary conveniences in the farm open letter by describing the actual fire hazard involved in these house swing wildly from one end of the country to the other. All old Jaw tenements, but admits that the present city administration that the American farm home seems to have over the city slum can do nothing to change this appalling condition. is the "country air"; and often this may be slightly tainted by the New York City, although it may lead the country in the size proximity of the back-yard telephone booth or cattle-barn. The and volume of its slum districts, is by no means the only city in 1930 census reported the following for percentage of farms. the United States having a slum region. A recent repor~ compar­ equipped with running water or bath: ing slum conditions in this country and in Europe leads one' to Running water Bath rooms believe that perhaps even in shoddy housing as well as in most Connecticut 63% other things our fair nation takes the lead. No American city 34% Kentucky 2% lacks its "gas-house district". In Cincinnati, for example, a survey 3% No. Dakota 7% 3% of 5,993 fiats in the town's malodorous "basin" district showed So. Carolina 3% 2% that 70% had outside toilets used by as many as 9 families. There were 80 bathtubs in the whole area. Half the fiats had two rooms In 1926, the Department of Agriculture, in a report of ""hite only and were occupied by I to 17 people. Rooms were dark and farm families in II typical states, said in . part : "Almost three­ windowless and a third of the buildings (3, 4 and 5 stories in fourths of the homes reporting have none of the modern improve­ height) had only one egress. ments (indoor toilet, kitchen sink, running water, central heating, etc.)." No agency, however, has yet succeeded in reducing the Chicago's Hull House district needs no introduction. In 1925, Mexican shacks of the Southwest or the huts of the Southern 1,500 homes had 140 tubs among them; a third had yard toilets; Negro share-croppers to any statistics whatsoever. For most such, and 85% of them had no heat but stove-heat. Philadelphia's it is far easier to indicate a minus and say that the house simply streets go by such names as Noble, Christian, an~ Beth Eden. In does not exist, except that there are human beings living in it. 1929 yard toilets in these districts ran to 90% or over, and stove­ These various settings make the grand picture that is called the heated homes to 95%. Every tenth home in the Beth Eden district "American home", the home of the poor farmer and city worker. had no water whatsoever. Pittsburgh has its "Hill" District and This is the dwelling of the two classes who through their toil Northside; Columbus its Sausage-Row; and in all of them condi­ brought about the ten years of the dizziest expansion these United tions are merely a duplication of the conditions in anyone of them. States have yet seen. For the sum total of the American cities there were in 1929 only 3 bathtubs for every 4 apartments, and one need not be a genius • * * • to guess what income group secured the greater proportion of these How is it possible, one must necessarily ask, that America tubs. In 1928, Philadelphia had 10,000 privy houses and St. Louis should be so deficient in decent housing? ,We recall the huge a like amount. Dr. E .E.Wood, accepted as a reliable and widely totals of construction for the years 1927 and 1928 and have been recognized authority on housing, writing in 1931 and describing reading for the past three years of the millions and even ~illions the extreme conditions, had the following to say: "Most American constantly "being appropriated" for housing and public works. It communities have sections, large or small, inhabited predominantly must corne as a surprise to learn that there is today a shortage of by Negroes or the foreign-born, where neither city water nor city 5 million homes and a total shortage of decent homes of about 18 ~ewers penetrate. Filthy back-yard privies with overflowing million. An analysis of the construction figures since the war as· well as a second glance at the huge totals being appropriated today vaults serve from 2 to a dozen families. \Vater is carried by hand into the house from well or hydrant." for low-cost housing gives one an inkling as to what has actually been taking place. This is the picture of the large city slum. Housing, like all enterprises under capitalism, has as its basis­ But all the above relates to the great American cities, and these profit. Slum eradication will take place only when it u pays"; thus have always had their slums. How about Middletown, home of far, it has attracted no private capital precisely because it does not Mr. Babbitt and his native stock American worker? Zanesville, "pay". Slum removal and replacement by new modern apartments Ohio (population 40,000) shows of the families surveyed that implies that the slum dweller is able to pay the higher rental of 40% lack bathtubs and only 61% have plumbing systems. Des the new apartment. This assumption is false. The slurn dweller Moines, Iowa ("city of homes") found in a recent s'urvey that out is not able to pay the higher rent required of him to change over of a total of 18,694 dwellings .in the city, 5,000 were entirely with­ to a decent home, and it is for this reason that slum eradication out sewers or city water; 1,500 had no running water whatsover. has not gone forward. New construction of city homes for the Stuart Chase in an estimate made in 1929 (which more than holds past twenty years has barely kept pace with population increase. true for 1935) concluded that for Middletown, U.S.A., most of \Vhat spurts did take place during 1923-1927 reached their peak the workers lived in the base-burner and unheated bedroom era; in 1925 and were forced by the laws of capitalist economics to one in four of all the city dwellings lacked running water. An begin to fall off long before the present depre.ssion began. Con­ even higher percentage still used the old fashioned back-yard tinued reliance on private initiative will merely see a repetition of privy; and only two-thirds of the houses had sewer connections. the results of the era before and during the depression. The solu­ Apparently, capitalism has as little regard for its native-born tion lies in governmental subsidy. A brief stUdy of the figures American worker as for the foreign-born. points to this as the only way under capitalism. As for the company town-crown of American efficiency-a For the past twenty years, despite the continued discarding of study made by the Department of Labor (in 1920, unfortunately, old mcwhinery by industry as a whole and a general replacement but would 1935 show much improvement :---thl'Y ~till arc company o £ the obsolete methods of production by newer technique, as towns) paints a dark picture indeed of the generosity of the Am­ regards the human home no such general replacement has taken erican paternal capitalist, the welfare type. On the basis of an place. New construction, to repeat, has barely exceeded. popula­ {':.-;:amination of 423 company towns, housing 160,000 employees, tion increase. During the war-years and immediately following, <:~d c'~nsti(uling 47,580 (1wellings, it was found that 17% of the construction of city homes actually fell behind the normal increase March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 49 of non-farm population. Beginning with 1923, home construction ment would take over the responsibility of guaranteeing the Illort­ began to spurt forward so Lhat by the end of 1927 (the peak of gages involved. The P.W.A., at whose head stands Harold 1.. construction w •. s 1925) there We,S ;;n e.:,-ccss of about 1,250,000 Ickes, although at first its functions overlapped those of the F.H. new city homes to tempt the slum dweller. Unable to pay the A., has today gone in for complete federal financing and the con­ rentals required for the newer apartments, the poorly paid worker struction of new homes. None of the scheme!ll, however, has suc­ represented no market whatsoever for the new buildings. Con­ ceeded so much in making a ripple on the American scene, as struction declined during 1928 and for 1929 was but 50% of the could be deduced from nothing more than the acknowledgement 1925 level. The year 1930 brought with it the crisis, and the of the fact that 1934 saw fewer homes built than 1933 and H)33 bottom dropped from beneath home construction, completely wip­ less than 1932. ing out the excess of home unit construction over popUlation in­ But in the creation of these various agencies hangs a tale: the crease that existed in 1929. The record for the years in question tale of the recent slug-fest between Ickes on the one hand (for (Bureau of Labor) shows what has taken place. The figures in­ the poor man!) and Moffett on the other (for the banker )-Roos­ dicate new dwellings in 257 identical cities: evelt, referee. 1925 491,222 1930 125,322 In] une 1934, Frankfin Delano Roosevelt in a radio broadcast, 1926 462,214 1931 98,178 said: "We seek the security of the men, women and children of 1927 406,0<)5 1932 27.381 the nation. That security involves added means of providing 1928 388,678 1933 25,879 better homes for the people of the nation. That is the first prin­ 1929 244,394 1934 (estimate) 24,000 ciple of our future program." The entire nation applauded. Construction of new dwellings during the past three years (years Better homes ?-wh y, certainly! of the Roosevelt ballyhoo) has been averaging about 5% of the The problem arose, however, as to who should build these h0111es 1925 peak, and during all these years, Sir Stork has been adding -private industry or the government. to our city population almost 1 million per year. The year 1933, Donald R. Richberg said last November: "The building of these and 1934 during which the papers were full of P.W.A., F.H.A., homes ought to be done by private enterprise." I ekes, in a report H.O.L.C.., and the thousand and one schemes of federal, state issued in the latter part of November, although not specifically and city slum removal "projects" witnessed an actual decline from replying to the above quotation, took exception to it. In condemn­ 1932. In New York City alone, there were 34.000 units built in ing the practise of relying upon private capital he said, in part; 1928 as compared with 4,000 in 1933. "Our much-vaunted private initiative as so often happens when • • • * the goal is a social good instead of a private profit, was unable or I t is with the above as a background that one can begin to unwilling to undertake much that was worth while. \Vith the understand why the federal survey conducted in the spring and failure of private enterprise to provide low-cost housing even with summer of 1934 concluded that there existed an actual shortage of government aid [85% of the funds were to be advanced by the 5 million dwelling units. Dr. E. E. Evans in his Recent Trends P.W.A. in the form of a loan. H.s] the Housing Division decided in American Housing, pubished in 1931, asserted that "less than it would have to do its own constructing and operating." half the homes in America measure up to minimum standards of About this time, Mr. James A. Moffet, who left a $100,000 health and decency". The real property inventory of 1934 con­ Standard Oil job to join the Roosevelt plan of becoming the head ducted by the Bureau of Census divulged conditions concerning of the F.H.A., told reporters in a press interview that he was urban housing in the United States. The report, based on a total pleased with his agency's progress. He suggested that Mr. Ickes' of 2,633,135 dwelling units in 64 representative cities, showed that funds might not be needed for housing because private capital was nearly 50% of the family dwelling units were over 20 years old; begining to fbw into the real estate mortgage field under the spur that about 7.8% were vacant (no statistics to show in what class of his agency's guarantee. of dwelling these vacancies occur), and that 17.1 % of the occupied The following day Ickes held a press conference. "I've seen no units were crowded. About 44% of the structures were in need evidence that the holders of private capital are ready to use it," he of minor repairs, 16% in need of major repairs, and 2% were said, "and we can't sit around all day waiting for private capital listed as unfit for use. (It must be remembered that the Bureau to get going." (This is speedy Ickes speaking.) "I subscribe to report did not concern itself with decent housing which is after the theory that a very large amount of public money should be all the real problem.) What this country ne.eds today is a housing put out so that industry, may be pepped up in a hurry." program that will create half as many new decent homes as are Mr. Moffett was thereupon put into a fighting mood. He told standing today. reporters that such a low-cost housing program as proposed by Government C onstructioll. What has the government actually Mr. Ickes "would wreck the housing situation and drive private done during the recent campaign of slum removal, besides making capital into hiding". "The minute the government sells hou~s newspaper copy? The year 1934 shows actual home construction directly to the people generally," he continued, "you compete with less than that of 1933 and only 5% of the 1927 figure. The Roose­ private enterprise and it couldn't be done." velt talk of millions and billions for "better homes for the people of the nation" has brought forth not even a mouse. The following day a three-way telephone conversation was 'held The federal government, in tackling the problem of home con­ between the two lieutenants and their chief, Roosevelt, who at the struction, has proceeded on at least 14 different fronts: H.O.L.C., time was basking in the Georgia sunshine. The tiff was apparently P.W.A., F.H.A., F.E.R.A. and a few more of the alphabet agencies patched up and an official White House communique declared that were created. Some of these agencies had as a specific task aid everybody was in "substantial accord". to the mortgage-holding property owner; others had as their task The controversy as to who should supply the funds for con­ aid for the banks holding unredeemable mortgages. The P.'W.A. struction apparently has led to this result: neither private capital and the F.H.A. had as their specific aim the stimulation of con­ nor public funds have been forthcoming. The whole squabble struction. The task of James A. Moffett, head of the F.H.A., was seems to have taken place in a vacuum. to induce private capital to invest its funds in new construction and The Federal Housing Administration has thus far advanced for rehabilitation. Where such efforts proved successful the govern- loans for repairs the grand total of 30 million dollars. The sum is so insignificant that James A. Moffet, in drawing his balance *P.W.A. is Public Works Ad- L.C. is Home Owners Loan ministration, F.H.A. is Federal Corporation. sheet at the end of the year, passes over this sum very hastily, but Housing Administration, H.O. then points with pride to the million and some odd pieces of" liter- Page 50 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March ]935 ature thus far distributed. "Wait until the end of 1935," he con­ we must stick to them." The gentlemen, indeed, spoke forcibly, cluded, Heven a billion won't be too small." frankly, and tragically for the underpaid city worker. In the P.W.A., however, under the supervision of H. L. Ickes, The need has not changed a whit. There is still a shortage of the money flows--drop by drop, it is true,-but it iounds big to 5 million dwelling units, 13 million homes still have to be rebuilt the uninitiated. The P.W.A. housing phase is divided into two or replaced. major categories, the limited dividend-private capital-government Why cannot the present approach of the federal government loan type, and the second to be completely financed by government bring any results? First, because it is geared at an entirely too funds. slow tempo. Where millions are needed, they speak of hundreds The Federal Housing Division of the P.W.A. was set up July and even dozens. Secondly, it is the approach of a pawnbroker 20, 1934. After 18 months Chief Ickes took inventory of the to his client, except that here the client has nothing more to offer. progress and hailed his work "as concrete evidence of the social He has been stripped bare. changes being wrought by the Roosevelt administration". He de­ The government approach is one that must result in rentals that clared that "low-cost housing projects are now going forward in the slum dweller can never think of paying. The limited dividend a large number of cities". The cities may be large but the number rentals of ten and eleven dollars per room per month are twice or the size of the projects could hardly be considered so-nor are what the slum dweller is accustomed to paying. In the early they low-cost. stages of the completely federal-financed projects the talk was of As of January 4, seven limited dividend corporations had be.n five and six dollars per room. Today this has risen to seven and organized, $12,433,000 allocated for their financing and $4,240,000 eight dollars, and before completion will. probably be still higher. actually spent. Of these government-aided private enterprises, 2 Thus far, the new construction has taken place not in the slum were complete. One, an apartment house in Philadelphia, provides regions, but mostly on very low value land. Should attempts be 284 living units renting for an average of $10.51 per room per made to tackle the slums in the heart of the city, the land values month. (Slum rentals average about $5 or $6 per room.) The will represent an obstacle over which no five and six dollar rental Cleveland project plans $10 per room and 6 room apartments, or will be able to hurdle, provided the present method of financing is $60 per month rent. The two New York City projects will aver­ continued. age $1 I per room. N one of the projects is in what might be The Ickes method of financing is one of self-liquidating projects. termed a strictly slum area; as a matter of fact, they are far re­ This means when translated into simple language, that the worker moved from the slum section. The two New York City projects will have to pay not merely for the upkeep, but for the actual con­ are to be located in the upper Bronx, near Westchester (Hillside struction and land purchase as well. (Including interest on the Housing Corporation) and in the great open spaces of Queens original sum advanced). Harold L. Ickes, in defending his posi­ (Boulevard Gardens Corporation). This can hardly be called tion last November, defined his policy as follows: HHousing under slum removal. the administration's program is designed to be self-liquidating. The Housing Division's own construction was proceeding or The money used in financing this lowcost housing will be returned planned through 49 federal projects involving 38,125 living units to the treasury through the collection of rents. The United States and $149,756,000 in allocations, actual or tentative. Thus far, 13 Congress has not authorized an era of Vienna housing, capital have been approved and are in various stages of actual progress. costs of which would be paid by the taxpayer, leaving rents to""be Commanding $79,807,000 in allocations, and providing 18,705 liv­ based on operation and maintenance alone." ing units, they will rise in New York (5,000 living units) ; Chicago It is precisely the latter type of financing that will bring about ( 6,900) ; Atlanta (1,283); Cleveland (660); Indianapolis (1,022); real slum clearance and it is this latter type that the working class Cincinnati ( 1,960); Detroit ( 1,236); Montgomery, Ala. ( 162) ; must demand. The federal government has subsidized everything and Louisville (460). Actual expenditures on them as of January from railroads to airplanes. Today should begin the era of gov­ 4 totaled $2,064,984. Of the remaining 36 projects, some they ernment subsidy for home building: initial cost of construction to hope to build, others they are merely thinking about building and be taken care of by the Federal government; rents to, be based on the remaining few they have not even begun to think about-but operation and maintenance. This is the only sensible and logical eventually they will all be complete. conclusion and only thus will we truly begin to approach slum The subsistence homestead, which one commentator properly removal on a large scale. termed "an industrial peasant" scheme, although it has contained One should not preclude the possibility of such a program taking within itself the very vicious idea of using the worker only when form and shape under capitalism. It is true that it will be no easy industry needs him and then making the unemployed worker dig task to force such a plan upon the capitalist class. The workers for his food, can hardly become a problem today. We are too far will have arrayed against them a solid front of real estate owner, advanced in the 20th century, and unfortunately capitalism still banker and government. But no obstacle is too great for a deter­ exists. By December 22, 1934, the F.S.H.C. had allocated $r8,- mined working class. 920,000 to 62 projects. These will provide 6,612 dwellings. Can such a program be undertaken by American industry? The Seventeen of the 62 projects were under actual construction as of answer is that not only can this be done, but tha~ a properly exe­ that date (1,064 dwellings). cuted program would take care of many of the nation's unem­ Except for a few scatterings here and there under some of the ployed. Construction has .constituted a drag on every upturn that more obscure letters of the alphabet, this is the sum total of fed­ has begun to show its head during the past few years. Consider eral home construction over 18 months. About 48,000 dwelling that construction used to average about 7 hillion dollars yearly units have been planned, 20,000 of which are in actual construc­ and has lately been running well below 11 billion; that in 1925 a tion and 500 of which have been completed. In 1925, total resi­ total of three and a third billion dollars was spent for residential dential construction was three and a half billion dollars, providing construction alone; that in 1925 about 772,000 homes were built; approximately 772,000 dwelling units. that normally the building trades industry employs 2,500,000 One would hardly call this slum clearance. One official of a workers. federal slum clearance agency, approached and questioned by the A quick program will return t.o their jobs building trades editors of New Outlook, replied: "No slums will be cleared. Not workers now unemployed as well as many millions more who would a slum. We cannot afford to clear slums. Even the government find their jobs again in the allied and the stimulated industries. cannot do that. We will clean up some near-slums. It'll be a hell of a mess, but we cannot avoid it. We made our brags and now Henry STONE March "35 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page S[

As a result there are 131,757 vacant slum dwellings in greater New 2. How the Problem Is "Solved" York today. Fictitious real estate values based upon the abnormal boom-year rentals succumbed to grim economic reality and de­ MERICA has discovered "the housing problem". For decades flated precipitously. Hundreds of thousands of workers were A its slums, for filth and overcrowding, have been exceeded forced on to relief. City rent vouchers were so low that they only by those of the Orient. But now, it seems, the gentlemen in could not even meet the deflated rentals demanded in the slum power in Washington are really concerned about those of their areas. Second and third mortgages disappeared over night. The fellow citizens who are condemned to live in dirt, depravity and slums were no longer so profitable. sudden death by fire in our "sub-standard housing areas", to use In a crisis of this magnitude only the large landed families, the the euphemism so much in vogue with housing experts. And the banks and the mortgage companies were able to retain their equi­ gentlemen in power, curiously enough, outdo each other in pictur­ ties, but as crisis followed crisis the properties soon dropped below ing the horror and tragedy of slum life. Secretary of the Interior, the value of the first mortgages. Slum real estate in New York Harold L. Ickes, as head of the P.W.A. in whose hands some of City today is actually worth less than its assessed valuation. For the housing funds hitherto have been tightly clutched, sheds ad­ the past two years sales of slum property· have been so rare as to ministration tears at the thought of slum degradation. Langdon be almost phenomenal. W. Post, chairman of the New York City Housing Authority, to When the banks and the landed families saw their equities hope­ wbom housing was in a class with Sanskrit before he recently took lessly wiped out, one last course remained for them-government office ·as New York's tenement house commissioner, stands aghast subsidy. Hence the surprising and sudden demands in government at New York's multiple-dwelling firetraps. Mrs. Roosevelt organ­ circles for slum clearance. As a matter of fact, so eager was the izes a slumming party of Washington society leaders to focus Roosevelt admin·istration to come to the aid of the holders of public attention on the cause of government housing. But "hous­ slum property that when the $4,880,000,000 emergency budget bill ing" is one thing and houses at low rentals for workers is another. was drafted it failed to make mention of government low-rental \Vhat are the housing facts? Let us see! building and merely called for slwn clearance. But the· manufac­ Take New York City as a fairly typical example. New York­ turers of building materials soon set this slight error to rights. with its Park and Fifth A venueS, its Sutton Place. In this proud In a rational planned workers' economy, homes will be buHt for metropolis, in this center of architectural wonder, there are nearly the very apparent reason that they are needed. But the present twenty square miles of slum area in which 513,000 families, in­ housing campaign does not rest on so simple a premise. No, in­ volving about 1,800,000 persOns, live under conditions of squalor deed! For nearly six years the profit economy in America has \vhich are une..qualed even by the notorious London slums. In New been paralyzed. All efforts to restore the· patient have been fruit­ York City 49% of all tenement and apartment houses were built less. N.R.A., C.W.A., F.E.R.A., P.W.A.-aU to no avail. The in the last century; in Manhattan 75% were built before 1890. more violent the hypodermic, the more spasmodic and grotesque In this housing cesspool hundreds of thousands of workers live are the response of the victim. With the national elections less without the most elementary sanitary conveniences. Antiquated than two years off and with more than 20,000,000 Americans on toilets in the haliways in common use for men, women and chil­ relief, the situation for. the Roosevelt administration is truly alarm­ dren. Breeding places of disease. Incubators of sexual crime. ing. Moreover, the capital goods industries are clamoring for Nearly 2,500 tenement houses with toilet accomodations in the help. The New Deal took care of everyone-the banks, the rail­ yard. Windowless rooms. Dark, fetid hallways. Unbelievable roads, public utilities, the mine operators and the manufacturers. congestion-in Harlem, the city's most exploited slum, the beds Only the building trades have languished under the blight. This never grow cold, they are used in three eight-hour shifts. Nearly is soon remedied. The answer, of course, is government housing, 2,000,000 inhabitants-representing what the social workers call part of a vast, last-stand public works program. "our lowest income groups", that is to say, the most exploited sec­ But, the President hastens to explain, there will be no fancy tions of the workingclass-are compelled to live under these in­ wages. 'Wages, said Mr. Roosvelt, will be a shade above the dole human conditions. and considerably below prevailing union rates. Thr workers must These are the bald facts about New York's slums, these are Itot, under any circumstances come to think that public funds are unadorned statistics, and are fairly representative of conditions in public funds. Carpenters, bricklayers, electricians and all the most large cities. These selfsame slums have existed for years. skilled building crafts will, with the assistance of William Green, They have filled the hosp,itals, prisons and lunatic asylums of the receive a "subsistence wage" not to exceed $50 a month. state ever since they caine into existence. In the past, philanthro­ For the past two years the country has been blanketed by glow­ pists anointed their consciences by building neighborhood houses ing articles, written by housing social workers and enthusiastic but and health centers in the slums. Social workers and housing "ex­ unemployed architects, on the advantages of government low-cost perts" wrote reports, made surveys and speeches-and still the housing. For two years the country has been deluged with statis­ problem .of the slums remained unsolved. tical surveys and reports an designed to prove that housing is necessary, desirable and logical. Net result: not a house. But the During the boom years the slums paid handsomely, paid as high distressed cries of the landlords, the outraged protests of the man­ as 30% profit per annum to the Astors, the Wendels, the Stuyve­ facturers of building materials and the ominous rumblings of the ~nts and the banks and mortgage companies who today own more millions of unemployed, impelled the government toward action. than 65% of all slum property. Filth, degeneracy and tuberculosis Not because workers w4re living in filthy rookeries. Not because stalked through the dilapidated tenements then as now-but as long the infantile death rate in the slums was steadily rising. But be­ as the properties paid well, the press was sterile of anti-slum pro­ cause more billions must be shovelled in frantic desperation into paganda. the wide pit of the crisis. During the past decade, however, some 413,000 inhabitants have The National Housing Conference held in Washington in Jan­ migrated from the lower East Side slums. Comparatively high uary of this year estimated that at least $20,000,000,000 will be wages earned during the years 1924-1929 enabled thousands of required to wipe out the nation's slums. Of this amount, $1,.500,- workers to escape the slums, enabled them to move to less con­ 000,000 would be required for New York City alone. What does gested and less squalid sections. After the debacle of 1929, work­ the Roosevelt administration offer in the face of this tremendous ing class families, under the heavy blows of the crisis, broke up, need? (What, indeed, can it offer?) Of the proposed $4,880,000,- doubled up, took makeshift quarters in rooming houses or migrated. 000 special appropriation, certainly not more than $1,250,000.000 Page 52 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

will be spent throughout the country for housing, of which New There can be no doubt that Roosevelt will initiate some nieasure York's share will be, according to the most optimistic forecasts, of government housing, but the actual needs of the most desperate not more than $150,000,000. Will this abolish the slums? Will sections of the working class will be ignored. Working class this pitiful amount, raised in desperation as a stop-gap against the families in the large cities which require four and five rooms at a floodtide of importunate manufacturers and the ebbtide of desper­ maximum rental of $18-$20 a month have nothing to expect from ate workers, really provide adequate housing facilities to those in this political housing program, which will be a heaven-sent release the greatest need? Hardly. from the hell of low values for the landed families and the banks. Let us assume that the federal government will advance New For vast sections of the working class, employed and unemployed, York City this $150,000,000 for housing. At the most not more the Roosevelt program means continued life in the old slums and than 120,000 rooms could be constructed at this cost. In short, all work at forced labor rates. that the President's labors will bring forth are apartments for Who, then, will live in New York's 30,000 new apartments? approximately 30,000 of New York's 513,000 slum dwelling fam­ Ward-heelers, certain sections of the lower middle class and the ilies. smaller categories of the Fusion and Roosevelt bureaucracies. And Slum property in New York City, although it has little or no when this comes to pass, for all popular purposes, the housing market at present, will cost as high as $12 per square foot when problem will have been "solved". the landowning families are to be bailed out and slum clearance Despite the vast amount of energy expended in writing about undertaken. It is quite possible that in some districts property housing in America in the last two years there has been no gelluine could be assembled for about $3 per square foot. Under these housing movement. An effective housing movement must, of nec­ circumstances more than 30% of the total housing appropriation essity, be a consumers' movement and the only "consumer" of low­ will be spent on land acquisition. With the real estate interests rental housing is the working class. Today housing is manna receiving 30% and 50% going toward material, labor will receive which fall, by some strange suspension of the laws of capitalist a bare 20% thinly spread as subsistence wages. economy, from the Rooseveltian heavens in Washington. Housing It is quite possible that while the government's slum clearance "experts" have always believed that housing would come from program will in effect be a subsidy to the landed gentry, the local above an~ the news of the $4,880,000,000 appropriation for housing governments will be compelled to guarantee that the funds will and pubhc works have sent them into positively indecent transports be used for self-liquidating projects. Moreover, it is quite possible of joy. that the period of amortization will be fifty years and that the The housing problem cannot be solved by capitalism. Neither rate of interest will be somewhat near the present federal rate, Mr. Roosevelt, nor Mr. Ickes, nor Mr. Moffett are in the least about 21%. Allowing for a construction cost of $1,000 per room, degree interested in destroying real property values-and, in the 2% amortization, partial tax exemption and an annual service last analysis, complete low-rental housing for the working class charge of $35 per room, it will be i~ossible to ren't apartments must lower speculative real estate values. for less than $9 per room per mopth. At this figure more than Housing is not a technical problem; it is an economic problem. 90% of the present slum dwellers will be unaffected by the Roose­ Although in the past labor organizations have been remarkably velt housing program. inactive on the question of housing, there are indications that this True, the government's model housing developments will be will not be the case in the future. Workers' representatives should modern, clean and healthful, but workers on relief or receiving demand representation on every housing authority in the country, N.R.A.'s minimum wages (which in many cases have become on job committees, on management boards. A labor housing con­ maximum wages) cannot afford to pay one additional dollar for ference should be organized in every large city to give the housing rent. In Glasgow it was discovered that workers who moved from movemt:nt the class character which alone will militate ag~inst the slums into model government houses where slightly higher injustice· and favoritism.. American workers have the right to de­ rents prevailed, developed a greater susceptibility to tuberculosis. mand decent housing, not as charity from their bosses or from ~is puzzled social workers for some time until an astute physi­ Washington, but as their inalienable right as the creators of all CIan (a Marxist in all likelihood) discovered. that the increased wealth. rental compelled economies on an already restricted diet. Paul V. McBRIDE The Poll tical Situation In Spain THE MOST surprising phenomenon of the recent Spanish the months leading up to the insurrection. One may use one's . proletarian insurrection is the fact that although the revolu­ final recourse while others still exist, but, of course, only on con­ ttonary camp was defeated, the Vaticanist reaction found itself, as dition that these other weapons are being utilized at the same time. regards power, in exactly the same position as before. The reac­ On the other hand; if the labor and popular uprising had been tionary cliques tried in vain during the Wild days of the insurrec­ defeated at a later date, it would have been difficult to keep the tion, to sweep everything before' them and to gain complete control Vaticanist reaction within the bonds that :pow· temporarily hold of the state. After having employed all of the coercive means at it back. Once the popular mass forces were ~feated, the arbitra­ their command, they were forced to give up in the face of resis­ tor of the situation in the midst of the antagonisms that might tance encountered. The repression, with the violent form5 it as­ have arisen would have been the army. Against the will of the sumed in Asturias, did not adapt itself to their plans; nor has it army, or without its support, nothing serious could h~ve been been able to surmount the temporary arrangement represented in attempted. And here we find the explanation, why it is that i':l the the ruling parliamentary coalition. conflict between the President of the republic and the government, We attribute this phenomenon to the opportuneness of the mo­ which incidentally is the key to the present situation, the point of ment chosen for the insurrection. From a revolutionary point of view· of the former has prevailed. I t, may be assumed that had view it would not be good judgment to use one's last recourse the events taken place a few months later, the story would have when there are still other less desperate means that can be em­ been different, because the most important military posts, held at ployed. But far from justifying it, this fact is the complete the time of the formation of the Lerroux-Gil Robles government condemnation of the expectant attitude of the socialist party in by c"ements in sympathy with the republican regime, would have March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 53 been replaced by elements loyal to the Vaticanist reaction. force would have met with the opposition of most, if not all, of In the very first days of the insurrection, when the general the army. If the political crisis of October which became the strike in the country had not yet been broken, and while the gov­ signal for the uprising had been solved in a manner unfavorable ernment forces were still unable to penetrate Asturias, a sharp to the counter-revolutionists, then the situation would have been antagonism developed between the President and the government very dangerous for them, for if they had attempted a violent as­ on the matter oLthe death sentences decreed in Catalonia against sault on power failure would have been inevitable., The fact that the military chiefs who had served under the' autonomous govern­ the President of the republic was the main hope of both of the ment. We all know that after the operatic act, beyond which the two antagonistic camps in the weeks preceeding the revolution, in uprising did not go, the Catalonian autonomists were the first force that he could throw the whole apparatus of the state either one to succumb. It was rather because those condemned had but re­ way or another, was the reason for his importance in the weeks c.ently been his own associates and collaborators, than because of preceding the revolution. Reaction realized its own weakness, any qualms about capital punishment, in general, against those and labor and the democratic (democratic and social democratic) defeated, that the President of the republic opposed sanctioning the camp harbored such fear of an audacious revolutionary overthrow death penalties in Catalonia. In the beginning there were differ­ of the regime, as to keep it in a state of passivity and watchful ences of opinion within the government itself on this point, but it waiting until the last moment. Being unable to use violence, what did not take long for the Vaticanists, to whose will all the other other means did reaction have of achieving power during the elements of the coalition are completely subjected, to prevail. .Thus recent events? N one at all. A protest in the Cortes could only the government was able to face the President of the republic with have provoked a Cabinet crisis, while the whole country was en­ a practically unified opinion. There can be no doubt that had it gaged in an armed struggle, and this would have meant risking inv.olved ordinary worker elements, the President would not have the loss of the positions which had been won in the government offered stich obstinate opposition to the executions ashe did. But at such great cost and with such tremendous difficulty. as for the execution of the Catalonian army officers, the President's We therefore have as the fruit of the desperate struggle that has intransigeance was absolute. The Vaticanist reaction was doubly been waged in Spain between the revolution and the counter-revo­ hindered: first; the commutation of. the Catalonian officers set a lution, a hybrid political situation. Everything is almost lost-the precedent that would have to be followed when the Asturian parliamentary system, Catalonian autonomy, freedom of the press workers, still in open rebellion, were brought to trial; and second­ and of propaganda, labor organizations-but nothing has yet been ly; it frustrated the hopes of the reactionaries to take advantage completely lost. of the circumstances by a great leap forward in their political • • • • career, being obliged instead to resign themselves to continued In order to arrive at an understanding not only of the exact road str.uggle based on the parliamentary coalition. taken by the counter-revolutionary course in Spain, but also in After a long drawn out dispute, the Cabinet gave in to the order that we may understand the changes and antagonjsms that President, retreating under cover of various dilatory formulre, the may very soon appear, we believe it advisable to describe briefly main purpose of which was to prevent the news of these commuta­ the forces that now share governmental power in the country. tions' of sentence for the Catalonian army officers from being made Niceto Alcala Zamora, head of the first government and today public until after the defeat of the Asturias movement could be President of the republic, by consequence of a whole series of assured. When the government actually. had for decision the factors, is the man who has exercized grea:test influence over the sentences 'imposed in Asturias, commutations were granted for all march of republican politics from the last months of the monarchy of the 23 that had been condemned to death, with the exception of until the present, in spite of having no party base of his own. The two poor wretches chosen to enact a ghastly comedy considered extraordinary role that he has played is due solely to his personal necessary in order to demonstrate that on some points the severity significance. His monarchist and Catholic affiliations, his quality 'Of the law is inflexible. The government commuted the death as ex-minister of the fallen regime, made of him a banner to be sentences, reserving all explanations as to the reasons for so doing followed during the last pre-republican period. The fact that such until such time as,might be deemed opportune. a prudent man should place himself at the head of a republican The governmental clemency during the repression was only movement should be the best proof of the decomposition of the apparent. What it did in reality, due to its own conflict with the monarchy, as well as the most valid guarantee to the "best fami­ President, was to moderate '. the action of the courts, while at the lies" that the new regime would not aspire to alter the principles same time intensifying the fury of the soldiery. 'While the matter and customs of the established social order. With no parliamen­ of commutations of sentences was being discussed in the higher tary representation save himself and a few friends, he commenced circles of the state, the armed forces of this same state were de­ during the constituent period of the republic to bring forward his voting themselves, to the most frightful butchery. Supported by militant Catholic opinions within a government where all of the martial law and an extremely severe press censorship over all other parties were fiercely secular without being much of anything information coming out of the Asturias region, the soldiery for else, for it is well known that parliamentarism and secularism are days on end committed the most monstrous crimes with all im­ the only two goddesses of liberalism, and especially of Spanish punity. By a discreet and impenetrable silence, the government liberalism. opened this channel for the crimes that it was unable for political The Leftists explained the continual subordination of the 'gov­ reasons to carry out officially and publicly. ernment to the will of Senor Alcala Zamora by pointing to the If reaction had been able to count on the support of the army, necessity of maintaining the unity of the government. At the no attention would have been paid to the opinions of the Presi­ same time, however, this necessity interested them as a means of dent, and in all likelihood the results of this antagonism, and justifying the abominable transactions and horse trades of their therefore the immediate consequence of the proletarian defeat policies, which they preferred, 'like good parliamentarians, to the would have been either a military dictatorship or a government radical application of the ideas they claimed to profess. organized to the taste of the army officers. But the position of After having worn down and chiseled away the most essential the army at the time of the insurrection, just as today, was such parts of all the secular legislation projects, as well as all of the that it did not seem disposed to take part in any intrigue or plot other most important proposals of the Constituent Cortes, Alcala of the various political groups, going only so far as to support Zamora finally left the government together with the other Catho­ official power. Any attempt of the Vaticanists to take power by lic, Maura, declaring his dissatisfaction with what little of the Page 54 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935 secular legislation had finally remained. sisted in serving as the agent of the monarchist governments for These projects were: that calling for the formal dissolution of combatting the autonomist demands of the Catalonian bourgeoisie, the Company of Jesus, accompanied by the still more formal ex­ utilizing the general incomprehension of the nationalist problems propriation of the latter's estates-prudently placed in safekeeping by the masses as well as their hatred of the exploiting bourgeois beforehand; and the law prohibiting the religious orders from class. This campaign was often conducted under direct orders teaching in schools. As he abandoned the government, Alcala of the Madrid governments, and always serving as an excellent Zamora announced his intention of taking the initiative and of means for blackmail, it carried forward by means of lofty iavoca... placing himself at the head of a public campaign for the purpose tions to the "social republic" obscene anti-clerical harangues. and of revising the constitution, at least in the matters of secular legis­ even anathemas against the automobile, that "detestable bourgeois lation. vehicle". In order to prevent the "bad effect" of discord with the ex-head The tales of prowess of the Radical party cannot be· told with­ of the government and to pay the homage due his person, the new out risk of being charged with exaggeration, or the simple desire Leftist government could think of nothing more fitting than to to tell stories. The invitation to the masses to "violate the novi­ retire him from active politics by naming him President of the tiates of the convents, making mothers of them"; the ostentatious republic, by which he was charged with the supreme vigilance and succulent meat dinners called "Feasts of Promise" given, .on over the Constitution that he himself-and rightly so-had de­ fast-days, so as to counterpose the Radical rite to the. reUgious clared incompatible with his whole ideology. What happened rite; these and other extravaganzas will give some ideas of the afterwards may not have been entirely predictable, but quite political stature of these people. The Youth Militias of the Radi­ obviously it was to have been feared. To no one who under­ cal party operated under the nom de gHerre of "Barbarous Youth", stands a little about Spanish politics is it a secret that the caust through the absurd ranks of which not a few of today's revolu­ of the fall of the republican-socialist coalition and the dissolution tionists have passed. The activities of the Radicals left indelible of the Constituent Cortes in the summer of 1933, was to prevent marks on Catalonian politics and especially on the municipal ad­ the going ,into effect during the coming autumn of the secular ministration of Barcelona. Their press frequently initiated furious legislation that had been passed by the Constituent. Precisely at campaigns against the Morroccan war, against some form or other that time, the President dissolved the Constituent Cortes, resolved of governmental authority, against some particular banker or to face aU of the dangers that a Rightward course might bring capitalist, in any of which cases those under attack knew, how to' rather than to permit the secular laws to prosper. silence these campaigns by a5king one or the other of the respons.. But in spite of his social ideology, which was identical with ible Radical leaders to drop around to the servan~ entrance, ",bere that of the Monarchist and Vaticanist reaction, of whose privileges an, envelope would be absentmindedly slipped into his hand. he has been the most ardent champion, the sectarian hatred of the The annals of Spanish .parliamentarism since the. b(gjnning of monarchists and Catholics against Senor Alcala Zamora has at the present century are filled with accusations against Radical all times been extraordinarily sharp. The churchgoing public party elements for cheating, trickery or bribery, in spite of the sees but the hateful spectre of heresy and hypocrisy in those Cath­ sma)) desire that. bourgeois parliamentarians have fo1' bringing olics who assumed the leadership of the republican movement. On such matters officially into the open. Even in the recent Consti­ the other hand, the marked disdain with which reaction views the tuent Cortes, one of the most outstanding leaders of the Radical republic as such, and certain of its basic institutions-parliament, party, famous for the record-breaking number of scandals in Catalonian autonomy-is sufficient reason why the President which he has been involved, had to be expelled from the Cortes should, on his own score, feel the greatest of misgivings toward for Hmoral incompatibility", it having been proven that be at:­ the reactionaries. tempted to bribe the parliamentary commission in charge of inves­ The Vaticanists found the docile instrument to fit their plans in tigating the secret activities carried on by the multi-millionaire. the Radical party, the representative of socalled "historical repub­ Juan March, sinister figure of the Spanish plutocracy during licanism". It would be difficult to find a party comparable to this recent years. The evidence was such that his own party was one at the. head of a government in any other country. In every obliged to accept the sacrifice and public dishonor of the "old parliamentary regime, the lowest political level is occupied by the militant" without any protest or objection being raiSed. However. parties or individuals of exalted liberal extraction, experts in when the first Radical ministry was formed, the multi-milliOnaire parliamentary intrigues, who make a profession of being in perma­ Juan March escaped from the prison of Alcala, to which the re­ nent opposition. All of the vermin of politics and journalism, the publican-sOCialist government had transferred him in fear that he most illiterate and the most mercenary, occupy this zone. The might be able to escape from the Madrid prison; and the already Spanish Radical party is one of the purest and most unbelievably mentioned "old militant" who had been excluded from the Cortes picturesque representatives of this species. with the silent permission of his own party came to occupy in the The Radical party never dreamed that it might some day reach new Cortes the leadership of his party's parliamentary minor'itj. the seats of power. After long years of existence as a party, the which post he still holds. The internal life of the Radical party coming of the republic was, for it, an unforeseen accident which is like a mad-house. The dominant theme of party life in general raised it from the lowest and dirtiest steps of the political ladder and that of its various leaders individually is made up, on every to the very highest plane. hand, of accusations of graft and job~seeking. However, they In the early years of the century, a great political effervescence pretend to live in rapturous adoration of their "chie{" Alejandro dominated the country's Hfe, and at that time, when the existence Lerroux-founder and main force in the party, old cynic and of the monarchy was not considered to be even remotely menaced, adventurer, and in fact, quite a political clown, who with great the Radical party came into being and immediately seized upon frequency brings the party's bright lights together in love-feasts the banner of the most exalted republicanism. The big bourgeoisie so that he may talk to them, Happealing"-to use his own words---­ which was then coming into existence along with the process of "sometimes to their heads and other times to their hearts". industrialization, in spite of clashing at many points with the old When the country felt the pressing need for a change of regime, bureaucratic state, did not go beyond the stage of a clever and the attempt was made to organize a new republican movement purely formal liberalism, while the proletariat was still in diapers barring the Radical party-which had become known also as "His ideologically and organizationally. Republican ideas were at that Majesty's republican opposition"-because of its extremely filthy time most appropriate for' the Radtcal' leeches of the permanent history. The most intransigeant in their opposition to the partici­ opposition. The most important work of the Radical party con- pation of the Radicals in the new movement were predsely those March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 55 elements who, being of monarchist origin ( especially Alcala pletely inadequate and recommended that more rigorous measures Zamora), knew best for what class of services the old regime had be employed against the clergy. But when attempts were made to used the Radicals, and who, because they were serious in founding apply this legislation in such minor respects as the removal of a movement to establish a republic, considered it advisable to crucifixes and religious images from the walls of official educa­ exclude such a party of demagogues and professional blackmailers. tional institutions, the "chief"-in response to inquiries on the However, it proved impossible to get along without the Radical subject-remarked that no one had ever been more "secular" than party which may be said to have been the only representative of he, nor for a longer period of time, but this matter of removing republicanism of some years' standing and which enjoyed a certain the crucifixes and images seemed to him a detestable annoyance. legendary popularity, with electoral strength in various localities And finally, when the attempt was made to suspend and invalidate throughout the country giving it a certain safe parliamentary base. the secular legislation already voted, Lerroux was placed in power. The elections to the Constituent demonstrated this, giving the * * * * greatest representation to the Radical and Socialist parties, which If the hegemony of the reactionary movement passed so easily were of longest standing, while the other republican parties were into the hands of the feudal Vaticanist party, this was due to the but last-minute makeshifts. But no sooner was the Radical vic­ organic weaknesses of the bourgeois party. The strong point of tory known, than the socialist Minister Prieto declared unexpected­ the former was that it held the political control of the villages, ly, at a time when the final lin~-up of forces was not yet clear, where the backwardness and lack of independence of the popula­ and the greatest of harmony seemed to reign among the parties of tion makes it possible for a privileged minority, consisting usually the republic, that the socialists would by every means oppose giving of two or three families-which may be either big landholders or the reins of power to the Radicals. How is this violent reaction middle class elements, according to the characteristics of the local­ of the socialists to be explained? In the same way as Alcala ity-to decide the elections. This is what is commonly known as Zamora's previous refusal to allow them to participate in the the cacique [boss] system. The republic wanted to make an end republican bloc. Even today these considerations cause him to of this system-by means of the ballot I In the cases of certain prate in his affectedly pompous tone, which, while it forms an municipal councils where it was claimed that their election was integral part of his oratory, is at present greatly exaggerated, not a result of the "popular will", these councils were removed, but because of the vagueness of the language he is obliged to use by with the same voters taking part in the new elections under the the nature of his office. The President of the republic now raves same conditions as existed previously, the results were naturally and .rants on the "morality of rulers" and whether or not there the same. These impregnable electoral positions and the tremen­ can be' "authority without morality", etc., etc. dous economic resources at their disposal for propaganda pur­ I t must be historically established that the discord between so­ poses permitted the clerical-landlord party to win whatever the cialists and Radicals did not originate on questions of program, bourgeois party should lose. With keen political sense it was and that only during the course of the Constituent did it acquire able to place class interests in the foreground of its demands, a content of ideas and interests. At the outset, the opposition to ignoring for the time all controversial matters of the political the Radicals was based on considerations of political decorum, on regime. The wealthy non-aristocratic classes of city and county, the simple need for a minimum of morality-in appearances at who looked askance at sectarian monarchism in which they saw least;· it was an echo of the horrible reputation of the Radicals. nothing but a political demand as disturbing as it was non.:essen­ On the other hand, the possibility of the Radicals governing the tial, gravitated towards the feudal elements with their program of country was viewed with horror by their adversaries, and even social reaction covered by a futile demagogy borrowed from the their allies were unable to conceal a certain ~larm which they rising European fascism. This program of reaction however were obliged to overcome in the name of' the supreme interests of made no impression on the Spanish working class, which on the their cause. The socialists could have no principled political contrary but tightened up its own ranks. No one, however, can opposition to the Radical party at a time when they themselves deny the success of this program-which has a clear purpose entered the government as the principal prop of the bourgeois re­ though ambiguous form-among the well-t!>-do classes. gime, in a movement where all the groups participated and where Upon the initiative of the Vaticanistst the monarchistic parties the most reactionary elements held the highest posts. did not go forth to the electoral struggle witb the crown and cross The Radical party was for the time being converted into the for emblems, but united as an "anti-marxist front". However, party of the bourgeoisie, which, not having traditional bonds with the marked monarchistic character of this bloc prevented the "his­ any particular group, has been ever adverse to changes in the torically republica~" bourgeois Radical party from entering it. government. The Radical party now .acquired enormous strength But faithful to the only thing really authentic in its wh()le past, and we are of the opinion that no party· specifically representative the Radical party made haste to lend its services in the form of a of the Spanish bourgeoisie has ever been so powerful. Further­ series of local partial coalitions wherever such arrangements were more, the recently defeated monarchic classes su~ported it, as convenient. The victory of this powerful reactionary bloc in the constituting for them a lesser evil. But the month;:; have passed, November 1933 elections was such as to surpass all expectations. showing that the Radical party is incapable of leading its great * * * * following. Incapable by nature of orienting itself by objective The sharp relief in which the problem was posed indicated standards, the party is lost in the scramble for lucrative posts and clearly what the attitude of a conscious, genuine workers' party, positions of power; all of the party activity is wasted in squabbles such as the socialist party decidedly was not, either by its theoreti­ or goes up in the incense of hero worship. Politically it continues cal foundation ot practical action, should have been. Thanks to the to live off the moment and the opportunities that present them­ the tricky electoral mechanism existing in the country, t~ Cortes selves. A curious example of its attitude is to be seen in the was the stronghold of reaction and the weak spot for the prole­ eternal religious question, one of the central problems of Spanish tariat. On the other hand, the strong points of the latter were the politics. broad well-disciplined laboring masses· possessed of a great spirit Without at all foreseeing the alliance it was to form shortly, the of combativity, which clerical Fascism was entirely lacking. The Radical party prepared to keep faith· with its original ideas on "concentrations" twice attempted by the latter (April 22, 1934 in such matters, so often repeated in the "Feasts of Promise" held EI Escorial, September 8 and 9 in Madrid and Asturias) were under its auspices. At the time of voting for the secular laws, answered by determined strikes of the proletariat which sUccess­ the Radials pointed out that they considered this legislation com- fully reduced to the ridiculous the great show f.)f forces by a reac- Page S6 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

tionary movement without real masses. The reactionary cadres the summer harvest, the agricultural workers' strike broke out as were made up in these "concentrations" of the domestic help of a consequence of the annulment of the labor agreements. At the the rich, and poor persons obligated to them. same time the Cultivation Laws, voted by the Catalonian parlia­ Where should the main proletarian attacks have been directed? ment in the interests of the peasants, led; to a break between the At the Cortes. It was necessary to decide on this course from the autonomous government of Catalonia and the Madrid governments, outset, or else allow reaction to come to power gradually, exposing one of the most notable manifestations of which was the with­ ourselves to that which has happ~ned: to the necessity of fighting drawal of the deputies representing the Catalonian Left Esquerra a decisive struggle under the least favorable circumstances. from the national parliament. But this was too much to have expected of the main working If the soCialist deputies had backed up the Catalonians and if class party, the socialist party, for like all of the democratic the industrial workers had support~d the rural workers on strike, parties, if the socialists decide to break with the formal rules of demanding the dissolution of the Cortes which was attempting to democracy, they do so only when the water has risen a little above nullify the conquests already achieved by the masses, it would have their necks, when there is absolutely no further hope of saving been next to impossible for the Cortes to weather the storm. At themselves. any rate, the labor movement could not have fared the worse if The position of the socialist party was, in brief, as follows: "If such a course had been followed. But at this decisive moment, as Vaticanist reaction should take power, we shall then make the in others before it, the passivity of the socialists was complete, insurrection against the government and against the Cortes." The The agricultural workers lost their strike, their organizations were interests of the labor movement on the other hand, counselled suppressed and their class consciousness, always less clear and proceeding with the decision against parliament for the purpose less firm than that of the industrial proletariat, was severely of preventing the armed clash at this' time, if possible, and placing shaken. Thus was the autumn ushered in. The reactionaries, the proletariat in an aggressive rather than in a defensive position. screwing up their courage, again attempted their grotesque "con­ In vain did certain labor minorities-the Communist Left, the centration" as a prelude to their activities for the conquest of Workers' and Peasants' Bloc (Maurin), and to a certain extent power. the Syndicalist Opposition-attempt to turn the struggle in this The proletariat responded to these provocations just as it should direction. The events of April 22 and SeptemberS and 9 were have. Then came the crisis in the government, with a solution the only events of importance that have to an extent separated favorable to reaction. The working class then had no other way the socialist movement from its traditional policy of prudent tim~­ out but to rebel. To have hesitated would have been criminal. dity. The demoralizing effect of these events on the reactionaries The agricultural regions, demoralized by the outcome of the sum­ was clearly visible. The socialist Left wing, best represented-at mer strike, did not take part in the insurrection, but even had they least in the field of propaganda--:-by the young socialists, did not intervened this could not have had a decisive influence on the out­ possess the maturity, seriousness or sufficient sense of responsi­ come of the uprising. That which, from the very first days, could bility to adopt this point of view. They preferred to make a big have decided the success or failure of the movement was the noise about their newly-discovered revolutionarism which in prac­ course of the struggle in Madrid. tise became the complement of their traditional organizational ...... timidity. To the demand that all energies be devoted to bringing The major antagonism today, with the regIme on its last legs, about the overthrow of the Cortes, they replied that it was not is that which exists between the reactionary liberalism of t,he necessary to concentrate the struggle on positions beyond which President of the republic, a God-fearing man who fears also the the proletariat had advanced, and that what was now necessary fall of the regime, and pseudo-Fascist Vaticanism. We must first was the preparation of the insurrection for the overthrow of the point out that no prediction as to the results of this conflict can capitalist regime. This over-simplified formulation of the objec­ be made. The role played in this situation by the Radical party tives of the proletariat has exerted during recent months the same can be deduced from the explanations we have already made: its disorienting influence over the masses as did the anarchistpropa­ presence in the government is the result of the rivalry between ganda of a-politicism in previous periods. the President and the Vaticanists, and serves as a screen for the In the few months of its existence, from the time of its election real impotence of the former. We should like to call the attention until the insurrection, the second Cortes of the republic was noted of the reader to our intention to state the facts with rigorous for its instability. The. governments during this period lacked a exactness in this analysis of the role of the Radicals; no irony is real parliamentary base and were made up of the least objection­ intended and there is no metaphoric generalization such as is able individuals, carefully selected for the role they were expected frequently used for· the purpose of bringing out the salient points to play-that of governing by the consent and instructions of the of a situation. The Vaticanists are free to break the coalition Vaticanists, who themselves had no direct participation in the with the Radicals at any time. The lack of any clear political government. The instability of the regime was constantly evident, orientation by the Radical party, eliminates any importance that and government crises were frequent. But in spite of having such antagonisms which may arise between it and the Vaticanists could a weak foothold that could have been washed away by the first possibly have. Whatever position the Radicals· may hold cannot unfavorable tide, the Vaticanists were nevertheless able to con­ influence the course of political events to the· slightest degree. tinue advancing because their only opposition consisted of some The· disagreements between the Radicals and their allies, when noisy socialists in parliament, as loud-mouthed as they were weak­ they are manifested at all, are shown to be of weak, unclear, and kneed. Instead of organizing a strong outside campaign which therefore scattered and ineffective character. The Vaticanists could give a more concise and urgent character to the struggle operate within the coalition in a cold calculating Jesuitical fashion, against the Cortes, this parliamentary opposition limited itself to utilizing the Radical party to the extent that they consider neces­ useless imprecations and loud talk. The position. of the socialist sary and being in a position to eliminate individuals who have Left on this point was pitifully ingenious. They favored walking become persona non grata at any time they may wish. With time out of parliament as an expression of injured dignity, but without the gradual dissolution of the Radical party may result. The thinking of doing anything outside of the Cortes, other than "pre­ partial cabinet crisis after the insurrection, by which the Minister paring for the insurrection", that is to say, preparing for the blow of War and Senor Samper, chief of. the previous cabinet, were if it is inevitable, but doing nothing to prevent it, which latter eliminated from the government is illustrative of this condition. problem, in our opinion, was also worth worrymg about. With The Vaticanists had not raised any objections to these two minis- -;).larch 1935 THE NEW INTERN ATION AL Page 57 ters at the time they were included ill the October govtrnment. should be guided by an analysis of events as they oCQur and not \Vhen the formel first gained entry to power, it was realized that by pseudo-revolutionary flights of fancy. The proletariat has just the raising of petty difficulties at that time would endanger their been defeated in an armed struggle and, although it has emerged tOwn attempts to advance. But once the coalition was firmly in from the experience with a high revolutionary morale, its cadres power, they were able by a well-directed blow to force the resig­ nevertheless have suffered the consequences of a serious repres­ nation of the two undesirables. Had the other Radicals 'come to sion, its organizations an4 propaganda are for the moment sus­ their support, there would have been a general crisis of the gov­ pended and threatened with definite illegality. A certain reaction­ ernment. This was something greatly feared by the Radical party ary newspaper, in reply to those who base excessive hopes on the and thus it was that they tolerated the mutilation imposed on them, conflicts existing between the reactionary factions and which we contenting themselves with filling the vacancies. This eloquent have just reviewed, asked if the Lefts could expect to win by a example, to which could be added others of similar nature, suffices mere cabinet crisis that displacement of reaction which they were to give an idea of the character of the ruling bloc, wherein the unable to achieve by force of arms. This question is very timely, greater intelligence and audacity of the Vaticanist wing as con­ in order that those under illusions may be brought to understand trasted with the personal corruption and political weaknesses of the realities of the movement. It is especially forceful when ap­ its alJies, permits the latter to utilize the Radicals as pawns without plied to those in the proletarian camp who are under such illusions, fearing them in the least. and who after a great defeat still dream th~t the proletariat may The President of the republic is the only consequential barrier be able in a short time to strike out again for power. Nontheless, within the regime that blocks the advanc~ of the Vaticanists. the frictions and breaches existing in the ranks of those who now This problem will ultimately be decided by the situation within the share governmental power open the way for the working class army. After the militant uprising of August 10, 1932, the army once more to win its elementary rights and liberties. The weight was well purged of the most rebellious monarchist elements that of the proletariat will be decisive and will permit it to thwart the had been involved in the conspiracy. The primary task of reaction aims of its enemies, converting the situation into one favorable to in past months was to liberate these elements and try to squeeze itself. Furthermore, the immediate future of the Spanish prole­ them back into their former military posts. The second of these tariat does not depend on itself alone, but in still greater measure objectives is today the most important activity of the clerical­ on the course and tempo of the internation'al labor movement. agrarian forces. TRAN SLATED BY RUSSELL L. BLACKWELL As to the possibilities of the proletariat or of the democratic L.FERSEN tendencies intervening in the situation at the present junction one MADRID, December 1934 Strikes on the 1935 Horizon AT THE MOMENT of writing no large scale strike is under profits as a result of the boosting of prices on the one hand, and way. There is a possibility that such a ~truggle may break the pegging of wages at a low point on the other hand, the basis out in the rubber industry in Akron. Just now, there are skirm­ for the employers' attitude is revealed. Since, furthermore, it is ishes only, deslutory firing, as in the drivers' strike in Fargo, N.D., only by the process of restriction of production, fixing of prices the hosiery strike in Georgia, etc. Are these rear-guard actions and severer exploitation of labor that profits can be made in this following the strike wave of 1934 or do they presage fresh major period of capitalist decline, their attitude toward unionism and battles ? collective bargaining will not and cannot change. Under the ar­ The answer to this question must begin with an analysis of last. cum stances unions relying on cooperation with the employers can year's strikes. These demonstrated certain things about the em­ by no stretch of the imagination gain anything for workers in the ploying class and its attitude, about the Roosevelt administration basic industries. Any conceivable temporary. gains and even the about the mood of the workers, a-nd about the condition of th; defense of existing standards can be won only by fighting organ­ unions and the role of the trade union leadership. izations through the most intense struggle. Stable unions living for lorig periods in peaceful contractual relations with employers The employers, particularly in the basic industries, demonstrated will not be a dominant feature of the landscape. that they are as adamant as ever against unionization of their em­ The Roosevelt administration, on its part, completely capitulated ployees and collective bargaining. The most determined resistance to the big industrialists in the strikes of 1934. Any pretense of was offered against all attempts to organize. The building of "cracking down" on them and forcing them to bargain collectively company unions to confuse the workers was persistently pushed. was thrown to the winds. The notion is as dead today as is the Bitter and brutal methods were employed in the effort to smash great Poo-Bah Hugh Johnson himself. Administration represen­ strikes when they occurred.. Moreover, the aggressiveness of the tatives continued to issue conftictinginterpretations of section 7A employer attitude toward the government and its gestures in "sup­ of N .R.A., which admirably served the purpose of keeping the port" of labor's right to organize, was intensified as the months workers hoping that Roosevelt . would do something, enabling progressed.· Sabotaging of the various labor boards by resort to William Green and his henchmen to contend that the workers must technicalities and endless delays, open flaunting of the authority of stick to them in order to please Roosevelt and get the benefits of the boards in many instances, appeals to the courts on the issue of N.R.A., while the employers were at liberty to smash strikes, build the constitutionality of the N.R.A., occurred. At the close of the company unions, etc. The gullibility of human nature is illustrated year the employers' associations openly demanded abrogation of once more by the fact that for some time the fiction was main­ all New Deal measures except those which strengthened monopo­ tained that it was Roosevelt's underlings, and not the Great White listic tendencies, such as suspension of the anti-trust laws. Pro­ Father himself, who were betraying the workers, though it was posals to outlaw sympathetic and general strikes are now being ROOMI¥'elt who personally wrote into the automobile code last waged. It is a far cry from the spring of 1933 when the Chamber March the "proportional representation" clause giving company of Commerce of the U. S. was begging Roosevelt to take control unions the· same status as independent unions. Even the most of industry for a couple of years on almost any terms. liberal of the various· labor relations boards made no attempt to \~hen '@De reads the reports of vastly increased corporation force employers to deal with unions or despairingly admitted that Page 58 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935 they had no power. Arbitrators and conciliators, even the best of Despite all this, numerous strikes did not come off at all, includ­ them, considered it their main duty to prevent strikes or settle ing the very crucial ones in steel and automobile~ Save in ex­ them expeditiously, not to help unions to win them· so that section ceptional cases, the strikes failed to achieve what under the ob­ 7A would cease to be a dead letter. jective conditions might have been gained The responsibility for Police and militia were regularly called out against the strikers. this must be placed in the first instance at the door of the A. F. of During the textile strike the militia was out in seven states at one L. leadership. As has already been noted, they depended upon the time-not to whip the employers into line, but to keep strikers in favor of Roosevelt, not upon struggle with the employers, to line. No word of rebuke issued from the White House. To the produce results for labor. They have been. betrayed by their contrary, when "Red hysteria" needed to be whipped. up in order "friend"; the employers have once again demonstrated that they to smash the Pacific Coast strike, not only reactionary Hugh will not be "patriotic" and sensible, and sign union contracts. The Johnson but supposedly liberal Frances Perkins of the Roosevelt union bureaucrats are now beating' their breasts, wagging their staff helped to do the job. heads, cursing such old friends as Donald Richberg, ex-attorney As the new year gets under way, Roosevelt renews the auto­ of the railroad unions, who learned· collaboration with capitalists mobile code, openly slapping William Green, who describes himself from no one but themselves. as the President of the "great American Federation of Labor", in Does all this mean anything for 1935? It would be a grievous the face of refusing to remedy any of the conditions which have error to imagine that Green et al. are now going to adopt a genu .. enabled the automobile barons to maintain the company unions. inely militant policy. They have long since forgotten how to fight. From Green, from John L. Lewis, and other trade union bureau­ They are saturated with a conservative, capitalistic outlook. Even crats who hailed the N.R.A. as the Charter of American labor with regard to respectable social issues such as old age pensions and tricked the masses into a vast schem~ of collaboration with they have. displayed no leadership but have followed in the wake the government in order to save capitalism, now issue howls of of social workers and politicians. They will make further com­ disappointment and rage. Of that more will be said later. Here promises in the pinch rather than run the risk of alienating Roose .. it is important to set down the observation that so far as the issue velt and giving him a' pretext for caJling them unpatriotic, ob­ of unionism is concerned the workers as a whole have been cured structionists of the national recovery, etc. The battle for militant of faith in Roosevelt. I have just passed through the mine fields unions in the big industries which can only be born out of strikes of southern Illinois where men were threatened with mob violence must therefore necessarily be a battle against the present collabora­ in the fall of 1933 if they showed any reluctance in joining in Blue tionist leadership of the unions. Eagle parades. You are more likely to be laughed at today for Nevertheless the experiences and revelations of the past year defending the New Deal than regarded as a "Red" for attacking have weakened the position and diminished the prestige of the itJ The workers may not yet fully realize that they will have to union bureaucrats. It will be easier for opposition forces to or­ fight the government as well as the employers in order to organize ganize, harder for the bur~aucrats to discredit those who from unions and win strikes, but they do know that no support is com­ the beginning predicted what reliance upon the N.R.A.. would bring. ing from Washington. Everywhere today one observes an increasing aggressiveness on What of the workers' attitude as revealed in the year which the part of the progressives and militants, a. defensive attitude on witnessed the aluminum strike, Toledo, a near-general strike in the part of the officialdom whose anti-Red campaign, e.g., has steel, Milwaukee, Kohler, Minneapolis, San Francisco, the textile come to naught, and a growing disposition on the part of the general strike? They evinced, and all the signs indicate that they masses to follow the progressives. still possess, a determination to organize. They are willing to tight Furthermore, the A. F. of L. leadership will be forced ta make for unionism, eve.n under the most inadequate leadership. The an effort to regain its prestige. It will have to go through the general strike in textiles was finally called by the leaders of the motions of trying to organize in some of the basic industries. It United Textile Workers only after the most terrific pressure from will have to talk in "militant" language again. Witness William the ranks. It was "settled" by the former on terms which, ~oput Green's speaking tour through the big industrial centers. Thus it charitably, gave the workers much less than they might have the cloak of A. F. of L. respectability may be thrown over certain obtained. Tens of thousands of them went jobless for months organizing campaigns and even strikes (c/. the steel strike of ~cause no defense against discrimination was provided in the set­ 1919) and the support of the labor movement as a whole gained" tlement. Yet if these same U.T.W. leaders call a general strike and this may prove of real, even decisive, help-provided that the tomorrow, the indications are that more workers will respond than progressive trade union forces, with revolutionary political lead­ last fall. Thus have the lessons of the depression sunk in. Thus ership and inspiration, maintain control. of developments and use has the desire for unionism been sharpened. the opportunity to the utmost. An adventurist and· unrealistic Of fundamental importance is the evidence furnished in the policy on the part of the latter wilJ only play into the hands of the struggles of 1934 that the craft idea is disappearing and the sense bureaucrats and offer them an alibi for inaction and sabotage. On 0'£ class solidarity growing by leaps and bounds. In Toledo only the other hand, a Lovestoneite-S.P. line of timidity, of avowed Of five hundred union members were on strike in the Auto-Lite plant, tacit alliance with the bureaucrats; can only result in the failure but ten thousand Toledo workers were on hand on the afternoon of organizing campaigns and the betrayal of strikes. There is" and evening When the plant was stormed. A similar story can be e.g., on the one hand grave doubt whether a large-scale organizing told of everyone of the big strikes of the year. Moreover, in campaign and a strike in steel can be achieved today without A. practically every case, the unemployed trained by the unemployed F. of L. "support" of a sort. It is certain, on the other hand, that organizations, especially the National Unemployed League and its no organizing campaign will show substantial results and DO effec­ units, fought side by side with their striking fellow workers on the tive strike will be permitted 'to occur at all, unless the work is picket lines, in fact in a number of inst'ances took the initiative. done and the actual as distinct from the nominal leadeJtship givel\ It was tonclusively demongtrated that where, as in Minneapolis by the progressives and militants. To split ~. the malses is a and Toledo, a realistic revolutionary political leadership was avail­ crime; to split the masses from the coUabor·ationilt bUfeaucratsis able, tDe workers were willing to follow it; and this leadership in another matter. large degree supplanted the conservative trade union bureaucrats, Under these circumstances unions indepeuaent of the A. p~ of' or at least forced them to take progressive steps, as the struggle L. cannot be ruled out of the picture in c.ay,alieF fashion. nJ~ gained breadth and intensity~ wOlkers will in certain instances tnrn to ttr.emJ far all of !~o~- Match 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Pap 5t

5tone·s warnings! They may serve as a base for militants and tendency practically everywhere to look with hope to the militants. revolutionists to contact workers. Their very existence is a chal­ These militants and Lefts must speedily learn to work together; lenge to A. F. of L. unions and a spur to action. The most they must organize both locally, in each industry, and nationally scrupulous integrity and most intelligent judgment must, however, for the ttade union movement as a whole. This is essential for be exercized in the situations where there is more than one union defense against the reactionaries who one day will smash isolated in the field. It is so easy, as in the case of the Progressive Miners centers of militancy. It is likewise essential because no headway and the United Mine Workers in Illinois today for the employers can be made with such stupendous problems as steel or automo­ to play one against the other while the workers are saddled with biles, e.g., by weak and scattered forces who operate in a haphazard two sets of bureaucrats instead of one! The revolutionists must fashion. stand for and vigorously push the issue of amalgamation into one In this connection the "new line" of the C. P. must be dealt democratically controlled industrial union in all such cases, and of with. Disaster having overtaken it as a result of its former poli­ course advance the slogan of identical demands and joint action in cies, the criminal incorrectness of which we had pointed out for ease of strike~ They must take every means to bring the rank years, the party is now executing the biggest zig-zag yet. In its and file of the organizations into contact with each other. The latest program the "revolutionary" unions are liquidated, the onus for division and splitting must rest in every instance upon united-front-from-below is in the discard, there are no more social the bureaucrats. Fascists it would appear, it is not wise to "raise the question of aft To the present writer it seems extremely doubtful whether in independent federation of labor", A. F. of L. unions are no longer the long rttn the A. F. of L. will ~ transformed into an instrument company unions. .To the naive it might appear that the Jeopard of struggle for the masses .of the workers iq this era of capitalist has changed his spots, and that a thoroughly correct and realistic decline. No intelligent. observer will be so bold as to claim that trade union policy has been worked out. The work in the A. F. he knows for a certainty :that it will. Even today there is no of L. unions will now be carried on with all the circumspection guarantee that the strikes which will certainly be necessary in that C. P. leaders and followers, long" trained in a false line, cae basic industries if any semblance of organized power is to be devel­ muster. Mighty efforts will be made to ingratiate themselves with oped by the workers, can be achieved within the framework of the progressive unionists who yesterday were fakers and capitalist A. F. of L. The choice between an open break with the A. F. of agents, preventing the workers from rushing into the "revolution­ L. or an ignominious and fatal abandonment of struggle ma, be ary'; uftions. There is. no doubt that with Its apparatus, press, presented to the workers. nat mull not be lost light of for a tte., the C. P. can 1ft000entarily rhake some headway with. this single mon*nt. Nor must the workers be left in any doubt as to potiey. It has already rained a slight foothold in one or two fields what ~ourse. the revolutionists will advise in such a ,case. where I>reviously it was barred. Yet, for all its painful, stilted The analysis of the past year and. the present position is not efforts to act tactfully, to put ort an "American approach", It Is eompleted, however, with the estimate of the rOle of the A. F. of already demonstratlnl in the steel situation that it cannot pt rid L. leadership. Where were the progressives and militants in the of its mechanical way of handling things, that it can only pia, ill strikes of 1934? Where were the political parties whose responsi­ an adventurist fashion for capture of a movement, for a bie story bility it was to give political direction to these struggles? to write about in the Daily Wo,.ke,., but cannot responsibly, pa.. The extent to which the Left-progressive forces failed to play tiently and honestly build a mass moveJntftt. an adequate and decisive role ,in this year of insurgency in the The plausibility ot the C. Po's present litle must not prevent aaly working class may be gauged by the fact that when under pressure revolutionist or intelligent trade unionist from understandift, itI of the situation the A. F. of L. convention last fan had to add real nature and pressing the attack Until thi. pa~y which h*1 ··new blood" to the Executive Council, four out of the five chosen everywhere in recent yeats led the workets to defeat has Men were Lewis of the Miners, Hutchinson of the Carpenters, Berry completely isolated and eliminated as an evil influence in the labor of the Pressmen, and Tobin of the Teamsters, four of the most movement. Its recent turn does not result from a reasoned "'i~· notorious labor czars in· the entire movement! The failure of the of the situation and it is not based on principle. It is based upon Left-progressive forces to make a better showing was due to the the exigencies of Soviet Russia's potiey, under Stalinist leader­ sheer inexperience of the more militant younger elements in the ship, of conciliation with the capitalist world and lack of confi­ new unions; to personal rivalries among them; to their lack of dence in the revolutionary mo.ement in capitalist countries. If political and economic background which offset their native mili­ it were based on principle, the new line would have been taken tan~y. It was due, above all, to the .fact that they were unorgan­ long ago and the havoc that has been wrought in the unions by ized. As a consequence they were more easily defeated by the the scattering of the Left-progressive forces and in other way. old politicians of the movement, and the lessons of one struggle prevented. If the new turn were a principled one, it would be could not be adequately utilized in the next. marked by some Bolshevik self-criticism of this havoc wrought in The lack of organization among the militants was in turn due the past. But we look in vain for any such analysis of past mis· to the failure of the S. P. to provide any independeittleadership takes and crimes· in C. P. literature. -whatever in .the union field and on the other hand to the disrup­ We are assured that a new united front policy is now to be tionist policy of the C. P. in the last period which had demoralized carried out but our comrades in Toledo found recently· that there the Lefts and isolated them from the masses, and made it easy is the same old trickery and chicanery as before. The honest for the bureaucracy to kill the inftuence of any opposition by militants everywhere will find that to be the case. The c.P. tagging the "communist" label on it. Thus the key to the devel­ makes a great show of wanting to establish an honest united front opments of 1935 is in the hands of the new revolutionary party with the S. P. and the A. F. of L. unions, but at the same time ·and of the organized Left-progressives in the unions. makes vehement attacks upon the Workers party and upon its' Economic conditions are such that the workers, both in private members, adherents and sympathizers in the unions, in the Unen»­ :employ al'ld on public projects, will be driven to struggle. There ployed Leagues, in Toledo, Minneapolis, the Illinois mine fields is no doubt that the will to organize is still strong among them, and other centers where these workers have constituted the back· even though in sudt an industry as automobiles .e.g., after the bone of the progressive fighting forces for years! What kind of experiences of last year, they hesitate to give their full confidence a united front is it which can take in social democrats, conset"ta .. to any UJlicMl· itt the fietd. Trust in the employers, the N.R.A. and tives and readionaries but must exclude and even attack Allard.. the ·uniO$ Q'ffieiaichJl hail been Maken. There is an unquestioned Battuello. Selander, Pollock, the Dunne brothers, Bill TruH/ Page 60 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

Arnold Johnson, Ramuglia, Bill Brown? And exclude and attack join qur ranks. Hot flirtations with sO,cial democrats and conser­ ,the Workers party-the one party which the C. P. cannot logically vatives may temporarily gain the C. P. some sympathizers among accuse of not being revolutionary and hence now describes as the latter. It will be at the cost of alienating true revolutionists "ultra-revolutionary" ? By this course the c.P. undoubtedly dis­ in its own ranks who have no means of telling when some new plays partisan tactical sense, recognizing the one force that can exigency of Stalinist policy may bring "orders-for still another effectively challenge its pretensions, has indeed put it completely zig-zag! on the defensive everywhere. But it likewise gives conclusive evi­ Thus the Workers party must assume its responsibility in the dence that it does not possess the competence and integrity to give strike struggles of 1935, in the building of the new Left wing in leadership to the labor movement. the unions. The fact that the American Workers party existed Some obstruction to progress the C. P. may yet be able to offer, and that the Communist League of America turned to mass. work yet even this can be reduced to a minimum and certainly will be profoundly affected the .character of the mass movement and the if the W orkersparty rallies all its forces and gives the workers strike struggles last year. Without Toledo and Minneapolis things that leadership which they crave. For the workers are not in large would have been very different. The merger of these two organ­ numbers going to "fall" for the latest C. .P. argument: "We have, izations brings the revolutionary forces to 1935 with strength, after wreaking untold havoc in every corner of the labor move­ clarity and purpose much more than doubled. There is no time to ment, had to throw overboard' in indecent haste every major policy be lost in rallying all the sound revolutionary elements into the of recent years; ergo, we have proved that we are the only party new party, in bringing all militant forces in and out of the party that can do anything for the workers f" together for united action, lest the upsurge of the masses in 1935 Within the C. P. itself the sudden new turn is causing profound again fail to achieve results commensurate with their militancy. di,sturbance. Many honest members and sympathizers now listen If on the other hand we do measure up to our responsibility the willingly to the propaganda of the Workers party and study its political level' of the struggle will be greatly raised this year and literature. With an increasing number of former C. P. sympa­ American capitalism challenged as never before by the organized thizers we shall now be able to work. Not a few members will might of the masses. A. J. MUSTE Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg NE OF THE marked features of the decay of official com­ the dirt. The kindest thing that can be said about the bureau­ O munism has been the rending of the theoretical web woven cracy's defamations of Rosa is that they have never served .the ,by its intellectual founders. The violence with which- the central interests of critical enlightenment but have always been subverted ideas of modern revolutionary Marxism have been torn to shreds to meet factional exigencies. and thrown into discard is matched only by the coercion e;xercized The very first "Bolshevization" wave which inundated the Com­ by the bureaucracy to compel adulation of its enthroned ignorance. munist International was directed not only at the Marxian prin­ Insisting upon acknowledgment of the .infallibility of its own ciples defended by Trotsky, but had as one of its purposes the theory, the central leadership then wards off all criticism of the discreditment of Luxemburg.. In the first "Bolshevization Com­ ensuing errors by the theory of its own infallibility. To sustain mission" of 1925, such luminaries as Bela Kun, John Pepper, both, in face of the paucity of its intellectual contributions to Heinz Neumann and Stalin solemnly elaborated the outlines of an Marxism and the accusing record of its achievements, it is con­ assault upon the "Luxemburgian deviation". In the German Com­ stantly compelled to pervert or defame the work of those gifted munist party which Rosa had founded, it was possible for one of l,eaders whose places it usurped. The bureaucracy must reduce the newly appointed leaders of that time to declare publicly that the proportion of its own dwarfishness by dragging its great "Luxemburg is the syphilis of the labor movement" without being forerunners, .to whose level it cannot rise, down to an inferior driven out of the party with whips. The complete edition of Rosa's position. It thereby acquires the semblance of greater stature. works, which the party had begun to issue under the scholarly This helps not only to console a dubious following, but reassures care of Paul Frolich, was brought to an abrupt end and no new the bureaucracy itself against its own uncertainty; volume has since been published. In 1931, the campaign reached With no one is this process more clearly revealed than with the its climax in Stalin's libellous letter to the editors of ProJetarskaia personal incarnation of the regime, Stalin. The two greatest Revolutsia on "Questions Concerning the· History of Bolshevism". victims in the domain of ideas are Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, The official line of the present bureaucracy with regard to Rosa's each· in his own way. What has happened to Lenin is even worse role in the labor movement derives directly from this letter, which than the fate which he once pointed out as having been accorded is now obligatory doctrine. The formal occasion for the letter to. Karl Marx and other great revolutionary leaders: "After their was an article wri,tten by one Slutsky in which he pointed out .that death, however, attempts are usually made to turn them into harm­ Lenin had "underestimated the danger of Centrism in the German less saints, canonizing them, as it were, and investing their name social democracy" before the war. For more than a year the with a cer.tain halo by way of 'consolation' to the oppressed article went unchallenged and uncriticized~ Stalin brolight it out classes, and with the. object of duping them; while at the same of obscurity, used it for a violent attack upon Rosa Luxemburg time emasculating and vulgarizing the real essence of their revo­ and Trotsky, and designated the pre-war Left wing in the European lutionary theories and blunting their revolutionary edge." The social democracy whose most eminent leader Rosa was, as semi­ Stalinists have not felt themselves under even such restraint with Mensheviks or allies of Menshevism. regard to Rosa Luxemburg. Against her tradition and heritage, The letter was the signal for a world-wide campaign of deni­ which was so warmly if critically cherished in Lenin's day, a gration against Rosa. I t reached its lowest depth in the book of veritable blackguard's offensive has' been systematically nurtured the one Stalinist disciple, Kurt Sauerland, in which he asserted since Lenin died. Whereas the ideas she defended bring her, so nothing more or less than that ".the legend of the 'betrayal' 'of the to speak, up to Lenin's shoulders, she nevertheless towers grandly once 'true' Marxist [Kautsky] does not stand up under a careful above the Stalinist pygmies. To strengthen the illusion of their ana1ysis"-a declaration that must have been consoling to Kautsky ~ height, Rosa Luxemburg had therefore to be dragged down into that Rosa and the pre-war Left wing were distinguished "only March 1935 T11E NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 61 forll1a]]y from the social-Fascist theoreticians"; and that today gation to defend the organizing work of Jesuits. In this condi­ Rosa's "theories have especially become the weapons of Trotskyism tioning of the right, that is, in essence, the subordination of, the and other counter-revolutionary groupings" (Der Dialektische national struggle to the interests of the class struggle, Lenin -estab­ Materialismus~ p. 133).* lished the difference between bourgeois democracy, even at its It is not in order to show where Lenin had a keener, pro founder best, and the revolutionary social democracy. While it was not and· more comprehensive view of the problems of the proletarian likely, he pursued, that the Polish bourgeoisie would raise the revolution than 'Rosa that this rubbish is crammed into hollow slogan of independence under conditions in which the national skulls. but in order to establish .the genius of Stalin by perverting question had been pushed to the background by the open (:lass what" Lenin and Luxemburg really stood for and officially estab­ struggle, it was at the same time possible that it would, and the lishing an unbridgable gulf between the two. social demo,cracy would err greatly in binding itself in advance The object of these lines, therefore, will be an attempt to restore against such a possibility. 'to "their proper proportions the divergences between the two great Luxemburg's criticism, which was. directed mainly and primarily revolutionary spirits whose anniversaries have just been observed. against the Polish nationalists and· not against Lenin, was not I f it 'is easier to do it now than it was a decade or more ago, it is based upon o.ppositio.n to recognizing, the right at issue. Proceed­ certainly not because of any light shed on the relationships by the ing fro.m the co.ntention that the truth was always concrete, she Stalinists, but because, as Heine said somewhere about Goethe, asserted that Lenin had failed to give a concrete analysis of the only now that the great oak has fallen can we measure its full political possibilities for Polish independence at the given time. stature. The latter could be the result o.nly of a general Euro.pean war and * * * * a Russian' revolution evoked by it, or vice versa. The Polish revo­ The sharpest dispute between Lenin and Luxemburg in the lutionists, however, refused to make a European war the point of period of the Second International occurred over the national departure for the policy, of the Polish working class. Should the question-the right of self-determination of nations and national Poles fight together with the Russian proletariat against absolutism minOl'ities-and specifically over the question of the socialist atti­ -she asked Lenin at the Congress-or separately from the Rus­ tude towards the question of Poland. Current communist indoc­ sians and therefore with the bourgeoisie for independence from trination dismisses Luxemburg'S position with the assertion that the empire? And in the first case, in what concrete form was it she "denied" the right of self-determination, but the dispute was possible to' realize the ,right of the Polish nation to self-determina­ faF from being quite so simple. tion without subordina.ting the class interests of the growing pro­ The common goal of the Russian social democracy at the begin­ letariat to' those of the Polish bourgeoisie? ning of the century was ,the democratic revolution against czarist Her views were' elaborated in greater detail in the articles she absolutism. The politically organized proletariat of Russia pledged wrote for the Polish theoretical review in 1908 a.nd in her intro­ itself to carry out consistently that liberation of oppressed nation­ duction to the collection of articles o.n the national question printed alities which a revolutionary bourgeoisie had once a~coniplished in 1905. Again, .it should be 'emphasized that she did not deny the in whole or in parol. The national problem was particularly acute right of all nations and national minorities to dispo.se of themselves for a country like the Russian empire in which not even a majority as they saw fit, for this was to her an "obvious and uncontested" of the population was composed of Russians properly so called. right, "conforming to the elementary principles of socialism". It For the Russian Marxists, it was taken for granted that the prole­ was no.t, however, to be 'realizea under capitalism. "So.cialism," tariat would accord the imprisoned nationalities of the empire the shewrot,e during the war in the famo.us Junius pamphlet, "grants right to self-determination even to the point of complete indepen­ every people the right to independence and freedom, to independent dence and separation, should that prove to be the democratically disposal over its o.~n destiny. . . . International socialism reco.g­ expressed will of the people involved. This view was shared by nizes the right of free, independent nations having equal rights~ bot'h Bolsheviks and' Mensheviks and, especially when applied to but only it can create such nations, only' it can realize the right o.f Poland, merely continued the tradition ot Marx and Engels. self-determination of the peoples." But, to advo.cate the indepen­ Opposed to the formulation of this 'slogan in the Russian party dence of Poland would produce, she argued, precisely what Lenin, program (§7) was the party led by Luxemburg~ the Social Demo­ in polemizing against the Polish nationalists in 190.3, warned cracy of Poland and Lithuania. Its posi,tion was set out right against: the corruption of the class consciousness and independence before and during the 'London congress of the Russian party in o.f the pro.letariat, the confusion of the class struggle, ,the impreg­ 190 3, to which, on the insistence of Lenin, Martov, Plekhanov and natio.n of the workers with petty bourgeois demo.cratic phraseology, Trotsky, it had been invited despite the opposition of the Jewish the disruption of the unity of the proletariat thro.ughout the empire Bund, and the fact that the S.D.P.L. ,had set as a condition for in its commo.n struggle against czarism. joining the Russian party the reformulation of §7· To proclaim this right, Rosa contended, would not result in a The congress had been preceded by a warm discussion in the positive so.lution of the natio.nal question. In defending it, the radical press on precisely this question. The chauvinists of the pro.letariat would inevitably' come under the domination of the P.P.S. (Polish Socialist party) had attacked an article in Iskra nationalist bo.urgeoisie, eventually become the football of the big which recognized the right of self-determination and had opposed imperialist powers, and lo.se both its independent identity and the to it their own nationalistic. point of view. In his defense of possibility of fulfilling its historical mission. From the interna­ Martov's article, Lenin reaffirmed the party's position but pointed tio.nal standpo.int, also, socialist policy could not include the estab­ out that this was not identical with the obligation to support every lishment of an independent Poland (under conditions o.f capitalism, demand for self-determination at every moment, any more than be it always understood), for that wo.uld bind the social democracy the demand for the right to organize is synonymous with the obli- to demand the separation of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from Germany and their return to' France, the promotion of the *The measure of the Stalin ism, a thorough eclecticist, me­ separatist aspirations of the Czechs, the acquisition of Trieste by school of theoreticians and its chanist and vulgar materialist, graduates can be taken by what not without very strong ideal­ Italy, etc.-support to' all of which would simply mean that the this same abusive ignoramus istic features." (Ibid, p; 173.) social democracy obligates itself willy-nilly to serve o.ne nationCll -says about Franz Mehring: This about Mehring, in order to imperialism or another in a capitalist war, that being the only "Mehring was not the. 'full­ contend that, except for Lenin, means by which any of these aspirations could be realized outside th~ only "full-blooded dialecti­ blooded dialectician', Mehring o.f the socialist revolution. Examination into the concrete possi­ was, as we 'have proved [!], cian" of our whole epoch is ... with all his lip-service to Marx- Stalin. bilities of realizing the right of self-determination, she therefore Page 62 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL concluded, especially when it is considered that the right is world­ biJity of the demand even within the confines of capitalism, namely, wide and consequently includes the colonial empires of imperialism, of a Russian democratic republic. 1£ there is a differenceia the excludes the struggle for it under capitalism as utopian, and makes two positions, and there is, it lies in the fact, continued Lenin, that it realizable only in the socialist society. the demand for the autonomy of Poland within a democratic Although she modified many of her other criticisms of Lenin Russia is a reformist measure, whereas the struggle for Polish and Bolshevism towards the end of her Ii fe, there is no doubt that independence is a revolutionary fight. she retained her point of view on the national question to the last. An argument advanced by Lenin which none of his adversaries Under her leadership, the Poles ject issued during the war by the extremist so far as Rosa's position is concerned, in the critical commentaries editorial board of Ga::eta Robotnicza, organ of the Polish social on the Russian revolution written just before her assassination in democracy, who went further than Rosa in that they characterized her S partakus letters and in the posthumously published manu­ the slogan as not only unrealizable under capitalism, but inapplic­ script issued by Paul Levi and written for his benefit. able under socialism. "If there is a party which declares in its Against Rosa's position, as well as against those similarly in­ program (or in a resolution binding upon all-the form is not the .elined, Lenin mustered a series of arguments which contain the point) that it is against annexations, against the forcible retention essence of the Marxian teaching on the national question and of the oppressed nations within the boundaries of .'s (this party'.) retain their fundamental validity to the present day. state, then we declare that we are in complete agreement in prin­ Socialism requires democracy and democratic forms; in realiz­ ciple with such a party. It would be absurd to want to cling to :tng them to the fullest degree, it abolishes them; the communist the 'lvords 'right of self-determination'." (Werke. Vol. XIX, p. ;society is at hand. From the standpoint of international demo­ 305.. ) ..cracy, it is impossible to gainsay the right of any people to self­ That Lenin nevertheless concurred with Rosa in her apprehen­ ,determination. As against the forcible retention of a national sions about the chauvinistic dangers entailed by advocating the minority within the frontieu of an oppressor power, the aspiration independence of Poland at any and all times, and that he had a to independence of this minority is a progressive democratic factor. high regard for her revolutionary, internationalist struggle against The proletariat of the oppressing nation cannot refuse to grant the Polish patriots of the PilsudskiiDaszynski-Niedzialkowski ,the oppressed nation the right to national independence, if and stripe, is beyond dispute. "To be for a European war solely for ·when it is demanded by the latter, without becoming an acco~1ice the sake of the restoration of Poland-that would mean to be a in its oppression. From this it does not follow that the socialists nationalist of the worst sort," he wrote in 1916, "to put the inter­ .of the oppressed llation are o1;>liged to support the national aspira­ ests of a sman number of Poles higher than the interests of hun­ tions of this or that people (or the bourgeoisie or petty bourgeoisie dreds of millions of people who suffer by the war. Such are how­ .of this or that nation), at any and every moment that such aspira­ ever, e.g., the 'Fraki' (Right wing of the P.P.S.) who are social­ tions are manifested. Nor does it follow that even the socialists ists only in words and against whom the Polish social democrats of the oppressor nation, while they support the demand for national are right a thousand times over. To raise the slogan of Poland's independence to the point of separation, are obliged to advocate independent no'lU, in face of the present relationshpis between the such a separation. The two are not identical, any more than the neighboring imperialist states, means in fact to chase after a utopia, advocacy of the right to divorce is identical with advocating that to fall into narrow nationalism, to forget the promise of a Euro­ one particular woman should divorce her husband. pean or at least of the Russian and the German revolutions. . . . ;'We have never reproached the Polish social democrats (I wrote It is no paradox, but a fact, that the Polish proletariat as such .on that score in Prozveshc/lenye) because tlley are against the can today serve the cause of sOCialism and freedom, also Polish, independence of Poland," Lenin wrote during the war to the only if it fights together with the proletariat of the neighboring Georgian Bolshevik, N. D. Kiknadze. "Instead of a simple, clear, states against the narrow-l'olish nationalists. It is impossible to theoretically indisputable argument: one cannot be for Sitch a dispute the great historical service of the Polish social democrats democratic demand at present (an independent Poland), which [i.e., of Rosa Luxemburg] in the struggle against· these latter." subjects us;,. practise completely to one of the imperialist powers (Werke, Vol. XIX, p. 32

-Stalinist quack doctors had completed the conversion of a once next stage this process will necessarily be vastly accelerated, glorious Left wing movement into sectarian auxiliaries of the bringing in its wake also the inevitable convulsions, resulting very party for momentary aims which prevented them from becoming likely in splits by expUlsions or by secessions characteristic of the genuine mass organizations. These unfortunate unions were kept decomposition attendant upon the birth pangs of a new union in leading strings, dictated to by the party from above, and conse­ structure, resting on a new theoretical and tactical foundation .in quently by all semblance of trade union democracy and free devel­ accordance with the new requirements. The expulsions in the opment was stifled and crushed. They remained isolated and un­ steel workers' union are so far only an indication. Weare not at able. to. lead any serious struggles. Soon, however, this perfidious this moment taking into account the question whether this process policy, devoid of Marxism, found its refutation in the process of will remain within the framework of the A. F. of L. or whether it life. The A. F. of L. unions experienced their recent stormy will reach outside in the formation of independent unions. That growth and development, and history made a mockery of the revo­ cannot yet be precisely estimated. Important however, is the fact lutionary union theory. The zig-zag cycle is now being completed. that the A. F. of L. today embraces the American trade union The Stalinists are attempting to revert to the original form of the movement and it is still the center of gravity. While the elements Left wing movement; but not at all to its original content. The of decomposition may very well in the future lead to the road of revolutionary policy is lacking. The substitution in its place of independent unionism, it should be remembered that the A. F. of an exclusive A. F. of L. orientation and the proscription of all L. bureaucracy has not at all the powerful political apparatus for that W m. Green and Co. labels as dual unionism, together with maintaining itself in perpetual control comparable, for instance, the brand new turn for a labor party, will by the very logic of to what has been the case in European countries. Trade union politics become a cover for an abject bowing down before this unity is today accomplished primarily within the A. F. of L.; but trade union bureaucracy. From this distinctly Rightward turn for us the question of unity or splits is subordinated to political greater debacles and b"reater demoralization will ensue. Thus, policy and not determined by what Wm. Green deigns to recognize what stands out preeminently in the lessons of the T.U.E.L., veri­ or to label dual unionism. This is the only way for revolutionists fied by history, is the degeneration and falsity of party policy. to pose this question. A correct solution to the problems that are In this respect the history of the Conference for Progressive involved presupposes the existence of the indispensable instrument, Labor Action presents a. distinct contrast. Programmatically this directly connected with and an intimate part of the trade unions­ progressive movement had much in common with the T.U.E.L. a progressive movement, organized nationally, interlocking from during its best days, although it lacked some of the spirited quali­ industry to industry and from union to union. That is the basis ties and clear-cut objectives of the predecessor. Above all, how­ for the fight for a class struggle policy and leadership in the trade -ever, its main weakness must be sought in the fact that it lacked union movement. But it is necessary to reiterate that therevolu­ the necessary support and direction of a workers' political party. tionary party must play a conscious role in its development. This It arose out of the need for a rallying center for the militant trade the ("V orkers party has accepted as one of its foremost tasks. unionists after the T.U.E.L. had deserted the basic labor move­ Our beginning we shall make from the simple and concrete ment. While the C.P.L.A. attempted to confine itself exclusively issues as they exist today. It is possible at this point to mention to the trade union field, there was no doubt of its general purpose. specifically: industrial unionism; an aggressive policy of organiza­ Its program included struggle for a number of elementary de­ tion 0 f the unorganized; dependence upon the organized power of mands but laid emphasis on labor's goal of a social order con­ the workers rather than upon the governmental labor boards; pro­ trolled by the workers. It asserted the principle that labor must motion of labor solidarity and struggle against the various forms be international in its spirit and activities. Although declaring of vigilante movements; trade union democracy and class struggle for a labor party, the C.P.L.A. sought to cooperate politically with policies. The fact that the broad masses are in motion makes a the two major workers' parties in existence, the c.P. and the S.P. broad progressive movement both necessary and feasible. The be­ Leaning at the outset considerably in the direction of the latter it ginning made from Minneapolis in the organization. of the pro­ soon began to move Leftward to a critical position of the S.P., gressive unity conference of the northwestern states may serve as but' found cooperation with the c.P. and its policy of "Red" unions a good example on a small scale and as .an initial beginning. In equally impossible. The C.P.L.A. was therefore driven to the the further organization and development, we shall enter into logical conclusion of its position, to endeavor to build a workers' agreements with progressive elements for the specific objectives political party. Out of it grew the American. Workers party. But set, and with the pledge to carry them out in common action. this also marked the end of the brief history of the C.P.L.A., and In the trade unions the party acts through its fraction. Under after that the validity of the all important lesson, that the con­ the existing conditions it is clear that the fraction is obliged not scious political direction of a workers' revolutionary party is the to unfurl the revolutionary banner prematurely. While it must first prerequisite for building a progressive movement in the trade translate the party's program into the langUage of the trade unions, remains doubly reinforced. unionists in order to lead them forward more surely, it is com­ • • • • pelled to adapt its methods and its tactics to the actual situation Since the reorganization of American national economy, exem­ at hand. But the party organization as a whole decides what plified by the N .R.A., the trade union movement has passed through forms of adaptation are permissible and necessary. The more two strike waves. The second showed characteristics distinctly difficult the conditions for the carrying out of the revolutionary different from the first. A new strike wave, mlOre explosive in work in the trade unions, the more strictly systematic should be character, is inevitable, and due to bring out yet greater differ­ the party control of its fraction. Preserving 'at all times it$ own ·ences. Far more than before, all the pressing questions of policy, political independence, the party as such will act with its banner methods, tactics and structure will come to a head. In general the unfurled, say everything that is required by the revolutionary ob­ transformation of the unions to meet the requirements of the new jectives, in its press and in its meetings, and name things by their conditions has followed much more· slowly than the changes in right name. The problems of the trade union movement can never national economy. This process of transformation is only about be separated or isolated from the general political situation, and to pass its first stage characterized by stormy growth of the move .. they must be placed by the party in indissoluble connection with ment, changing its composition from a craft basis toward a mass the political struggle of the working class. balis and inaugurating the first changes in its position in relation to the dominant capitalist forces and the capitalist state. In the Arne SWABECK March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Why the Saar Was Lost THE RESULT of the vote in the Saar district came as a tainil1g there--the dated referendum-had there existed between surprise. Not even the Fascist hangman really counted upon the c.P. and the S.P. the political premises for a united front. so overwhelming a majority for reincorporation into the Third But precisely this was absolutely not the case. Jleich; still greater, however, was the astonishment in the anti­ "Separatists." For a long time, an exceptionally great confusion Fascist camp, where nobody was prepared for so slliall a Dercen­ prevailed among the bureaucrats of the labor organizations and by tage in favor of the status quo. No quibbli'ng1 and twisting gets that also among the masses of the membership. Nobody knew us past the fact: the anti-Fascist forces have suffered a grave what was actually going to happen in the Saar now that the defeat, whereas Hitler has gained a great victory. Up to the very Fascist dictatorship had been established in Germany. For years, last the chances for the status quo were calculated at a far higher the working class organizations had worked for the reincorpora­ figure than the bare 10% that was finally assembled for it. The tion of the Saar into Germany-was an end to be put with a single forces of German Fascism proved to be stronger than the anti­ stroke to the good old slogan? After all, one had grown so used Fascist. What is now necessary, in the first place, is to examine to it and nobody ventured to propose a reversal, the political turn into and to lay bare the causes that led to the Fascist victory and that had become necessary. Blandest of all-naturally!-were the the anti-Fascist defeat. It would only mean a further weakening Stalinists. To them, the singular "program of national liberation" of the anti-Fascist forces were one to pass over the Saar defeat of the German Communist party of Germany still held good, and with confusing and tortuous explanations, or worse yet, with besides-had something really happened in Germany? The c.P.G. sentimental extenuations. hadn't suffered a defeat, Hitler wouldn't last in power for more The Fault of the Terror. In all the explanations and commen­ than a few days, everything was in the best of order: ~hoe~er taries on the anti-Fascist defeat, the Fascist terror occupies the didn't believe it, could read it for himself, black on whlte, ~n Fr~tz foreground. It is set down as the main reason for the Fascist Heckert. And as the matter was so clear, the c.,P. retamed. Its victory. It may be a good consolation to many to feel that they 'n the Saar' Back to Germany. But smce somethmg o Id sI ogan 1 • .' h C P felt became the victims of a frightful Fascist pressure, but this is but like a Fascist terror nevertheless ruled 10 the Relch,. t e 'e.' a feeble consolation and in the best case. perhaps a quarter-truth. itself constrained to alter its old slogan; thenceforth It read. Back Naturally, there was a strong Fascist terror, there was a constant to Germany under aU circumstances! . pressure. Yet this assertion does not yet signify much. It is much For months on end propaganda was made i~ fav~r of thiS more important, however, to emphasize that there was no anti­ slogan. Its success, it goes without saying, consisted 10 an ~nor­ Fascist counter-pressure, or practically none! And the blame for mous strengthening of Fascism. Great masses must have sal.d to Hitler's significant victory in the Saar district is shared both by elves' "If indeed we are to go back to Hitler, then let It be thems . . "S d' d the C P Fascist terror and anti-Fascist impotence and passivity. with the Fascists and not with the Commumsts. 0 l. . ' That terror and Fascism are inseparably connected, is certainly render Fascism the service of whipping up support for It. not new. The additional evidence of the Saar vote was not re­ Those, however, who came out for the status quo in ~he ~aar quired to prove it. Something different had to be shown in the district immediately after the establishment of the FaSCist dicta­ Saar, namely, that the Fascist terror represents no invincible force torship in Germany, were called "separatists" by the C. P. and and that the power of the proletarian, anti-Fascist united front is even abused as "creatures bought by France", The slogan of strong enough to break the Fascist terror, at the very least, to status quo was thus combatted by all sides at first, ,both ?y the dam it and to attenuate its effects. Otherwise, why the struggle Fascists and the C. P. Only the strength of the antt-Fasclst re­ against rejoining Hitler-Germany? It was necessary to harness sistance was weakened thereby; weakened also, however, was the and exert every bit of strength, genuinely and actively. And it is C. P. itself. Renegacy from the c.P. to Fascism became very from this standpoint that a position must be taken on the Saar widespread. vote. Innocents may content themselves with the argument that Finally, when the c.P., especially under the influel1ce of strong the terror was to blame. The question to be answered is: How oppositional sentiments in its own ranks, was compelled to· give could the Fascist terror acquire such extraordinary significance up its slogan of reincorporation, then picked up the confusing and despite the anti-Fascist united front? meaningless slogan of "A Red Saar inside a red Germany", but rile United Front. At the beginning of July 1934, the united nevertheless had to come out in favor of the status quo in the end, front was effected in the Saar district between the c.P. and the a long and precious period had been lost for the struggle in faver S.P., a year and a half after Hitler's seizure of power, half a year of the status quo. Among undoubtedly large sections, the C. p. before the Saar referendum. It took a long time before the social itself had discredited the status q'Jlo as separatist and French, and democratic and the Stalinist bureaucrats recognized the most ele­ had decided the masses in favor of Germany, i.e., of Hitler. And mentary need of the anti-Fascist struggle: the close organization in the period that followed, Fascism made not inconsiderable use -of. an forces for the struggle against Fascism. The Fascist "united of those insults and calumnies which originated in the arsenal of front'~ had long become a fact-all the bourgeois and reactionary the Stalinist bureaucracy. organizations had been brought together in the Deutsche Front , ~ore cautious was the S.P. It too hesitated a long time before under Fascist leadershi~before the bureaucrats of the labor or­ lSSU10g a clear slogan for the referendum. First it made a pro­ ganizations, not least of all under the pressure of the membership longed attempt to get a postponement of the voting, a solution masses, . condescended to form the anti-Fascist united front. which was no solution and which necessarily ended in failure. . It ·is . no accident that the anti-Fascist united front in the Saar Nevertheless, the S.P. arrived at the slogan of the slatus quo distrid came into existence so tardily. What was primarily muc? sooner than the c.P., but unlike the latter, without having decisive, generally speaking, was the fact that the movement of prevlOusly made good propaganda for Hitler-Germany. the sotial democratic and the Stalinist bureaucracy in the direction This development, which occurred before the formation of th united front in the Saar district, must not· be overlooked h e of the· united front first started everywhere towards· the summer ... h S wen of 1934- But this ·"reason" could surely have been overcome with exammmg mto t e aar struggle. On the contrary, it is of im- . ease in the Saar district on the basis of the special situation ob- portance, for the original weaknesses of the status quo, the shame- Page 68 THE NEW INTERN ATION AL March 1935

ful and treacherous policy of the c.P. and the hesitancy of the itself for the possibility of a new referendum later on; upon the S.P., could not but have their effect. The masses were thus driven Pope, if he would declare himself for the status quo. Where it into the arms of the Fascists and kept there; a subsequent depar­ was necessary to fight in the Saar with one's own forces, and if ture from the Fascists was tied up with great difficulties and help was needed, to appeal for it to the international proletariat, dangers. The loss of time had its bitter revenge; time is a price­ only longing glances were cast towards Geneva and Rome. But less factor in politics, especially when so embittered a struggle is the Pope remained silent. Only the bishops made speeches-for involved as the one that was carried out in the Saar. Hitler. Optimism of Parades. It is clear that the united front-after Hopes were put in the Catholics. To be sure, these hopes 'w'ere about· a year and a half had been lost and only half a year stIB not baseless in advance. But if the Catholic sections were to 'be remained till the decision-immediately had to unfold the most won for the status quo camp, they had to be convinced of its power active anti-Fascist resistance. The Deutsche Front had thoroughly and strength. Yet it was just the other way that it happened: exploited the confusion in the anti-Fascist camp, had plunged instead of bringing the Catholics under the influence of the united forward everywhere, and established its positions. Fascism could front, the united front passed itself off as Catholic, almost as more be driven back again only in the course of un intermittent, tenacious Catholic than the Pope. 'The Stalinist Arbeiterzeitung wrote about daily work. The masses, having felt up to then only the Fascist the sanctity and the protection of monstrances and processions, pressure, should now likewise have been made to feel the pressure and also that these things were all protected by the Communists, and the might of the united front. Although the united front had etc., etc. A Comintern-Catholicism grew up and produced astound­ come into existence late enough, it was nevertheless not too late. ing blossoms. The referendum showed unequivocally and clearly Much could still be saved, very much. But one condition had to that the abandonment of vigorous activity by the proletarian united be fulfilled before the work could be successful: the united front front for the sake of a stupid toadying to Catholicism, did not would have to be a genuine fighting front, it would have to develop achieve the slightest results and was not even taken seriously by the greatest possible activity. the Catholic circles. At most, the C. P. recruited a few of its This is just what did not happen. There was no trace of a members for the Catholic church, just as it did a short time pre­ serious work of the united front among the masses; all its activity viously for reincorporation into Fascist Germany. was exhausted by joint meetings, fine speeches and strong phrases. ((Hold Fast to What You Have." This is the slogan under which But behind them stood nothing. The leaders of the united front recruiting went on for the status quo. The very choice' of the complained incessantly about the Fascist terror, did nothing and slogan expresses the whole helplessness of the united front. With only complained. Thus the Saar district, so far as it was anti,.. it was stifled any fight in the Saar for new rights, for higher wages, Fascist, was turned into a wailing wall. But neither the voice of etc. The position of the Saar miners, one of the most important Max Braun, nor Pfordt's, nor yet Father Dorr's, was capable of sections, is extremely bad and miserable. The united front wanted filling the Fascists with fear and of breaking down the Fascist to "hold fast", but the working masses wanted to have living con­ terror. Other means were needed for the purpose. ditions. Fascism promised them all kinds of improvement and Activity. To drive through the country in automobile and to made full use of corruption throughout the ranks of the workers. deliver big speeches, is certainly a good thing, but entirely inade­ Hitler's work among these workers was facilitated by the fact quate. Not much could be achieved that way, even less in the that the exploiter who paid such miserable wages was the French Saar district than anywhere else. Only an unremitting daily work mine administration. of activizing the masses against the Fascist pressure could be of In this respect also the united front did nothing. There wasn't any help. The Fascist terror should have been checked and coun­ even the thought of a struggle for higher wages, for better work­ ter-measures taken immediately and in every single case. The ing conditions. Yet, by means of such a struggle large masses of individuals and the vacillators should have been worked on sys­ workers could have been showed that for them too the status q'Uo tematically, the Fascist test votes should have been prevented, the would bring about an improvement. In this way, however, the Fascist questionaries seized, etc.; the oft-mentioned Fascist slogan of the status quo remained a hollow one to broad masses "Block Guards" should have been opposed by agents of the united and Fascism profited by promising them economic improvements, front. The masses should have been in a position to feel that the etc., after the reincorporation. The proletarian united front for­ united front is backing them up. But nothing of the kind oc­ got the daily struggle of the working class, forgot the struggle for curred. The united front was completely preoccupied with par­ raising the proletarian living standards and was thus defeated by ades: the Sulzbach demonstration sufficed for a prolonged wave of Hitlerian demagogy. enthusiasm, the demonstration in Saarbriicken, the socalled An After-Effect. The struggle for the stat'Us quo was badly 4'greater Sulzbach", created even more enthusiasm-until, one week conducted, very badly. But that alone does not explain the depth later, the result of the referendum, as the "greatest Sulzbach", of the anti-Fascist defeat in the Saar. A bare 10% of the votes brought with it a brusk awakening. for the status quo is such a catastrophic result that other factors While the united front talked itself to death, the Fascists syS!­ besides the miserable policy of the bureaucracies must have been tematically and planfully prep~lred the referendum. Besides talk­ at work. ing, they did not forget the orga·nizing, the organized pressure. The outcome of the Saar struggle plainly illustrates the effects The united front only organized meetings, and beyond that its which the victory of Hitler has had upon broag masses of the organizing activity was nil. And if the former "leaders of the people. The defeat of the German working class did not pass by Saar proletariat" today tell us and the whole world about the without a trace. Widest sections of the people have lost all confi­ terror of the Fascist Block Guards, then only one question i!; of dence in the power of the proletariat' and are attracted and held interest: how were these creatures able to play such a disastrous fast by Fascism. So heavy a defeat as that of the German prole­ role in spite of the united front? In answering th,s question it tariat is not so quickly forgotten and straightened out; two years should not be overlooked that the failure of the united front be­ of Hitler dictatorship only led to 90% of the Saar popUlation ex­ came the strength of the Fascist Block Guards. pressing itself for Hitler. Such a result should not be underesti­ The Pope. Instead of living on active struggle, the united front mated; it allows of important conclusions about the situation in lived on hopes. It placed its hopes in everything and therefore did the Reich itself. To be sure Hitler's position within the Reich is nothing. It made its victory depend upon the League of Nations not as strong as in the Saar, but the rumors about the convulsions. .and the Pope: upon the League of Nations, if it would express of the Fascist dictatorship will be greatly diminished for a period March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 69 of time. Fascism is no mere "king for a day". The evaluations knew: For Germany means--for Hitler! And the Fascist "libera­ which the Stalinist bureaucrats gave about Gerrrian Fascism, tion uproar" throughout the land ailer tl:c r,+:reridum, confirmed proved once again to be stupid and false. "'. asn't it tL~ ~ a:lt" tl-":. (v~r ;:! ~a :n. :.J ot Germany--but Fa~cism, Hitler, drew dre which, according tu lhe Stalinist theuries, W,,5 to b('c0m~ a g.'cal pOPliation 0: tti\.: Saar into it;) 01 [;~L; it voted fur the Third Reich. anti-Fascist victory? Yet, out of ahout 127,000 votes cast for the No confusing or clever tricks can g~t around this; they have noth­ labor parties in the Federal Council eiection of 1932 in the Saar ing in common with lJolitics and are merely a gross nuisance. In district, only about 4J,000 remained for the status quo. Even if order to combat the enemy, he must be acknowledged; you don't one assumes the most favorable case, and estimates that only half arm yourself for new struggles with cock-and-bull stories. of the voters of 1932 had the right to vote on January 13, 1935, One thing was confirmed by the Saar referendum: the effects of there still remains a great proletarian loss to record. To find a the defeat of the German working class are extremely long-lasting solution for this, will hardly be attempted by the Stalinist theore­ and deep-going. The proletariat cannot emerge from this defeat ticians. by means of the old bankrupt policy of the bureaucracies. Perhaps they will adopt the clever explanation which all the Also confirmed, however, was the law: proletarian passivity baflled and helpless politicians are now employing: "Large sec­ signifies automatically the strengthening of the class enemy, the tions of the Saar population voted for Germany but not for Hitler." weakness of the proletarian defensive struggle is the strength of Here indeed is an explanation that might have been produced by the Fascist terror. The working class of all countries must thor­ a low comedian. In the Saar itself it looked quite different. The oughly assimilate and attend to these lessons which were empha­ whole referendum battle took place under the sign of the swastika, sized anew in the Saar struggle, if it would guard itself from new Germany's propagandists employed the Fascist phraseology, the defeats. Deutsche Front was a purely Fascist organization. Everybody PARIS, January 20, 1935 Oskar FISCHER In a Billion Dollar Industry

MERICA'S billion dollar rubber industry is an outstanding Small companies flourished until over 200 of them were in A example of the development of monopoly-controlled by business. Meanwhile Goodyear was using surplus profits to build finance capital-over the country's basic productive forces,' which plants in Los Angeles, Canada, Gadsen, Georgia, Buenos Aires, has been forced by its inherent nature to find its highest expres­ W olverhampton, Eng. and elsewhere. Goodrich and Firestone sion in ruthless imperialism. followed this same path. An idea of the immense amount of sur­ The industry has expanded in two decades from a few small plus value stolen from labor can be had when it is realized that factories located in Akron, Ohio, to giant corporations having monetary wages-about $1,500 average per worker yearly-re­ plants throughout the world from Japan to India to Spain and mained the same throughout this period, while tire prices followed South America. It has subjugated Liberia into slavery, fought other commodity prices in the upward leap during the inflationary against. British and Dutch imperialism over the East Indies in its period. Better yet, at Goodyear alone, 30,000 workers in 1920 pursu~t for crude rubber and raw materials. built 30,000 tires, while in 1930 16,500 workers built 50,000 tires! When the world war broke out, the rubber industry received And the wages remained the same. the same, impetus as steel for its growth, with the insatiable de­ The other company of the "Big Four", the United States Rubber mands for its products, in particular gas masks and other actual Company, used a more advanced capitalist technique to rise to war equipment. Government subsidies, chiefly in the form of un­ first place in the rubber world. Through holding companies, etc., believably high prices for products, left the tire industry in an it seized control of over 34 companies and had assets of over excellent financial position and saw Akron grow from a mere town $350,000,000. With the beginnings of business recessions in 1927, of 50,000 to an industrial center with over 200,000 population. the Big Four used ruthless price-cutting to ruin the small com­ During this period Akron men, entrepreneur capitalists, controlled panies of which only nineteen of any consequence exist toJay. the industry. This process was accentuated with the depression. The post-war depression gave New York capital its opportunity Until the Roosevelt regime, the rubber industry, enmeshed in to seize control from the Akron men-an example is F. A. Seiber­ financial difficulties, was unable to continue its profit-making to ling, founder and builder of Goodyear, whose $150,000,000 com­ any extent despite successive 10% pay cuts, with the exception of pany was taken by Dillon, Reed, of Wall Street, because of unpaid Firestone who proudly announced in 1931 that his company made loans. $4,000,000 by cutting wages! Under the benevolence of Roosevelt British control of crude rubber plantations which sent prices the companies-i.e. the Big Four-have announced profits of an shooting to as high as $1.14 a pound with the Stuyvesant act of average of $4,000,000 apiece yearly. Two 10% wage increases 1924 forced the industry to seek its own raw material sources. were given, but these were followed. by two 20% increases ih tire This epoch was culminated with the building of a million acre prices; and living costs, of course, have advanced about 25% in plantation in Liberia for the Firestone Co. in 1927~ Financial Akron so that labor today receives much less than it did before control over the country was given to Firestone by the League of the New Deal-as in every other industry. Nations upon the insistence of the American government. The During the rise of the rubber industry labor made numerous slavery of the people-against which even an Episcopal bishop attempts to gain more of its share of the product it was creating. protested-followed. In 1913, under IJW.W. leadership, a general strike in Akron The tremendous boom -in the automobile industry in the 'Twen­ brought pay increases. Bill Haywood was one of the leaders in ties was followed by a similar expansion of the tire industry which this fight of labor, which was met with vigilante committees, depends in a large part on the auto industry (their seasonal booms wholesale terrorism through beatings, and utilization of strike­ and depressions, their cyclical curves of business activity, run breaking agencies. Goodyear even set up a Goodyear Industrial parallel). It was in this period that tire production trebled to assembly in 1914 as a sop. This company union still exists and reach 90,000,000 million yearly and that plants began to sprout is a factor here which splits labor forces. Walkouts of depart­ throughout the con try. ments marked the period from 1920 to 1932. In fact, in 1927 the Pale 70 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March (935

Proletarian party captured control of the Goodyear union and council of seven members only one of whom was an actual rubber lead a walkout which was broken, since only 200 workers joined. worker. The other six were craftsmen. Claherty had himself In general, however, the firing of any militant, the recruiting of elected president. Akron locals were given two offices, having ex" raw labor from the backward sections of the South, and the failure officio membership in the council, as a sop. .of any organized labor group to try to unionize the workers, made However, the Akron locals were able to force two concession.s the boast of the Chamber of Commerce that "Akron is the most from the A. F. of L. since the convention set up the United Rubber open shop city in America" true. "Vorkers' Council as governing body. One was the adoption of a The communist party has had an organizer and a small follow­ law that craft unionists should also join the rubber workers' local, ing since 1921, but disastrous poJicies, poor leadership and the and the other was the creation of a subordinate council, composed objective conditions have kept it a negligible factor. A more of delegates from the Akron rubber workers' locals, whiGh has thorough analysis of the C. P. position today will be made later. power over them. The advent of the N .R.A. found the 80,000 rubber workers in The fall of 1934 found the rubber workers' unions in a precariou-s the industry in a dangerous mood. Years of seasonal lay-off's, position. The Firestone local, which had 75% of the 9,000 em­ brutal speeding up-as was shown statistically-the oppressive ployees as members, dropped to not over .2,000 membership. The atmosphere of the working surroundings which smell of sulphur Goodrich local, having 8,000 out of 9,500 workers organized at and are filled with sulphur dust, the wage cuts, the day and night its peak (it was and is the strongest union), saw its membership work (shi fts are employed continuously for 24 hours daily) and fall to less than half. The Goodyear local, at best with 75% of the depressed condition of their living as the depression squeezed the 12,000 employees unionized, was down to not more than 2,000 tfown their existence level-these conditions, prevalent in America members. The ordering of employee elections at Goodrich and and accentuated here, aroused labor. Firestone last December brought many workers back to the folds. Under rank and file leadership, unions rose here from nothing Goodyear local leaders were afraid to pit their strength against until it could be safely claimed that nearly 40,000 workers were the 21-year old company union. Of course the companies tied the unionized. Not until the rubber workers were almost at the elections up in federal court where they are still pending. Two height of their strength did the A. F. of L. take action. Then weeks later Firestone laid off 325 workers who were the backbone Coleman C. Claherty, special organizer appointed by Green, came of the union. A strike vote was taken but defeated through Cla­ to Akron, and charters were granted to the locals. Claherty was herty's machinations, for he is deadly afraid of the companies, if a craft unionist, a sheet metal organizer, and he followed the A. not in their pay. Instead the A. F. of L. prom:ised action through F. of L. policy of building crafts. Charters were thus given to 25 the labor boards. It has begun an absurd campaign to take away craft unions. the blue eagles of the company. That is their strategy despite In the spring of 1934 the A. F. of L. had two fights on its hands. Roosevelt's open rejection of them as class allies. First, the rubber workers demanded strike action and repeatedly This action has nearly killed hope of an industry-wide strike tried to pass motions to that effect in the locals. They wanted for this spring. Progressive forces which sought to compel a results but Claherty, the only experienced and clever politician, strike were defeated by Claherty at a recent meeting of the sub­ backed by Green, was able to forestall action. Second, the rank ordinate council. Membership in the unions continues to fall after and file leaders who organized the unions, wanted industrial un­ the adoption of the class collaboration policy. ions and an international. Having thus elected to complete its betrayal of the rubber Sentiment for industrial unions and an international was so workers, the A. F. of L. reactionary leadership stands exposed to strong that a year ago January the unions from plants throughout the progressive elements and the workers at large and stand~ at the country sent 200 delegates to a '~rump" convention, unsanc­ the threshold of its doom. Personal criticism of Claherty is so tioned by the A. F. of L., to form a rubber workers' international. outspoken and great at local 'meetings that his removal seems a This was smashed by Claherty and Green who expelled the leaders foregone conclusion. A strong rank and file "union within the from the unions. The two real leaders, Frederick L. Phillips, union" under progressive leadership at Firestone threatens to take former financial secretary of the Goodrich local, and Clark C. the entire membership with it away from the A. F. of L. As Culver, financial secretary of the Goodyear local, have since been though Green and company weren't having enough trouble with unable to find work at any plant and have had their characters progressives in steel and the textiles and the auto industries, this assassinated by Claherty. Promise of a sanctioned convention additional headache keeps the bureaucrats awake at night. , It is later .and of immediate action in negotiations with the rubber entirely possible here that a spontaneous walkout like the one at barons helped Claherty swing enough support to continue his the General Tire company will happen any day. Again the A. F. dictatorship. of L. bureaucrats will be put on the spot. Threat of a strike at the India Rubber Co., near Akron, brought lt is evident that the chief difficulty of the workers has arisen union recognition and small wage increases last February. Refusal from their inexperience in fighting bureaucrats like Claherty, and of the big companies even to discuss possible negotiations with in their not having a correct perspective for their future. 'There the union delegations brought bitter resentment last May, ·but huge is no unification of progressive elements in the various plants. inventories and. the arrival of the slack season helped Claherty This must be the major task of the Workers party in Akron. curb the militants. However, 1,100 rubber workers at the General Numerous contacts, a good role 'in workers' education circles here, Tire Company, impatient with the A. F. of L. and realizing they and a thorough grasp of the situation are the aSEets. Likewise we must strike immediately to ·win anything, walked out spontaneously must pose the question of strike leadership if such action is' taken early in June and held a strong picket line for six weeks, forcing by any of the locals. A weakness in numerical strength must be the A. F. of L. to back th~m. They gained a partial victory. The overcome by the branch so that it can play a decisive role in the excellent financial and picket line support other uni"ns gave the labor movement in the rubber industry. The Stalinists have been strikers was significant. It showed that labor understood the need and are almost completely isolated from the rubber workers' for solidarity. Labor, previo~sly inexperienced, was learning. unions. One of the greatest fields for the growth of the Workers When the A.F. of L. called a national rubber workers' conven­ party in America toward the revolutionary overthrow of capital­ tion last June, delegates were selected by crafts so that the actual ism is open to us. We must go forward, armed· with the keenest rubber workers' unions having 90% of the workers in them, were weapons of Marxism, to victory. The future of the working ctas·s in a hopeless minority. Claherty was able to set up an executive and its allies is at stake. Jack WILSON March 1935 THE NEW INTERN ATION AL Page 71 Marxism: Science or Method? The Historical Limits of the Materialist Conception of History F ROM DENYING that Marxism is a science, it is not difficult historical materialism would not be to do him justice. In another to jump to another startling conclusion that historical mater­ place, (chap. XI, sec. 3) Hook has a more adequate discussion, in ialism is confined in its application only to class societies. Hook which he approximates much more closely to the meaning of Marx performs this additional feat with the agility of a trained acrobat. and Engels. Here he distinguishes two aspects of the theory: the His argument takes this form. Historical materialism is the ab­ dynamic and the static. The dynamic phase is found in the pro-. stract methodological approach which the proletariat concretizes ductive forces of any society. These forces are responsible for in terms of the class struggle of today. In this concrete form, it deep and far-reaching changes, the appearance of new methods of is actually the method by which the proletariat frees itself and production, new ideas, new developments in the fields of art and all oppressed classes from the dehumanizing chains of capitalism. science. The static phase is found in the productive relations, in Its applicability, therefore, is necessarily restricted to the society in the private ownership of the means of production, in the distribu­ which there are contending classes, the class struggle. It can tion of the wealth of society. It is when the static and dynamic l1ever apply to a society in which all classes have been annIhilated phases come into conflict that life and death struggles occur be­ at one blow, or liquidated as the result of a long, voluntary process. tween classes. Beyond capitalism, in the classless society, man is no longer· sub­ Certainly to the superficial reader of Marx and Engels, it would jugated by economic circumstances, chained like a prisoner 10 seem as if Hook has here squeezed the essence of the materialist economic process and laws; he is, as Henley poetically apostro­ conception out of their combined writings. Who would dare deny phized, the master of his fate; nothing except "natural necessities" that, for Marx and Engels, society grows or decays as a result of hamper the free activity of his highly cerebrated, spiritualized the contradictions which develop between the productive forces existence. The world, in short, is his oyster. How can anyone, and productive relations of any social order? But how, on the with a proper conception of that world, think of explaining its basis of this generalization, can Hook uphold the theory that his:' "general character ... in terms of the economic relations in which torical materialism is limited in application to class society? There human beings find themselves and by which they are controlled"? can oilly be one other answer besides the one already mentioned: '( p. 97). How c·an anyone insist that there is a tie-up between the that productive relations are only expressed in the form of the cultural life of classless man a:nd the economic relations in which private ownership of the means of production. lie he finds himself? This principle·, therefore, Hook says, "of neces­ There are, therefore, two arguments for Hook's position: (I) sity, must be suspended in a collectivist society in which man makes that historical materialism only applies where man cannot control his own history, in which the total product of labor-power, al­ economic forces; or (2) that productive relations are only ex­ though not returned to the individual worker, is disbursed and pressed in the form of the private ownership of the means of pro­ reinvested for the good of the conununity ...." (p. 97). duction. The picture drawn is very pretty. Who would want to deny it? I Man, no longer subject to unknown economic forces beyond his The first proposition rests upon the indisputable truism that control, no longer tossed upon the Procrustean bed of the class capitalism is unable to plan or control its economic destiny; that struggle, lives in the pure, mountain air, clear of the steel filings all class societies, up till now, have been unable to plan or control and cotton waste of production. .But· Hook makes his picture even production. This· inability of Ilian to control his economic cir­ prettier by scraping his intellectual bow, in one of his chapters, cumstances ends, however, with the establishment of the ·dictator­ musically across the strings of the bull fiddle of tragedy. "Under ship of the proletariat. Society, then, can be planned and con­ communism," he says, "man ceases to suffer as an animal and trolled, and man is no longer the victim of his environment. The suffers as a human. He therefore moves from the plane of the opposite now becomes true : the environment is his slave, a reluc­ pitiful to the plane of the tragic." (P. 101.) tant and dangerous slave, perhaps, but a slave nevertheless. But Hook, therefore, is giving· as his reason for saying historical according to Hook, where control exists, there historical material­ materialism can not apply beyond class societies, the ability of ism cannot apply. The proletarian dictatorship, therefore,· finds man to control economic forces. But by his definition of historical itself theoreticaliy in a very unique position. Historical material­ materialism he seems to imply another. If we had to deal solely ism is applicable to the capitalist world around it and to its relation with this particular definition, the task of disposing of Hook's to that world, but within the dictatorship, it has to discover an position would be simple. Unfortunately he says other things to entirely new method of historical analysis. -complicate our task. According to him, historical materialism is Contemporary facts might seem to substantiate the correctness the "theory which explains the social Ii fe in terms of· the economic of Hook's position. The Stalintern has repudiated, if not openly, relations in whkh men find themselves or are controlled". In the than in actuality, the basic theQries of Marxism. It has invented form it is expressed, it is far removed from Marx's and Engels' the theories of socialism in one country; the united front only from conception, for it fails to include the forces of production and the below; s'lCial-:-Fascism; the independent revolutionary character of prop~gation of life. But ~ven in this form, it does not exclude, as the peasantry; and party art and science. These new theories Hook presupposes, applicability to a classless society. cannot be built on the foundation of the materialist method, for Economic relations can mean, without contradiction, two things: they are, in essence, a repUdiation of it. Yet why does Hook agree (I) those relations growing out of the private ownership of the with us that these theories, because they are non-Marxian, consti. means of production, or (2) those relations dependent upon the tute a perpetual danger to the Soviet state as well as the world sharing of the products of labor without any private ownership of proletariat? . Why should he agree with us, in insisting that the the means of production. The first means the existence of classes, best defense for the workers' state is a return to revolutionary of oppressqrs and oppressed; the second, a classless or communist Marxism, in short, to the materialist method? IWhy does he not society. Neither is excluded by Hook's definition; and so, even in its terms, historical materialism can apply to a classless society. ·P. 142 • The social retations of /lro/lerly relations", and "the production, which are synony­ economic foundation of culture Still, to take this definition as Hook's complete understanding of mous with the exprf!ssions "the " (My italics.) Page 72 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 193.5

repudiate Ollr criticism as slanderous and counter-revolutionary? society. Ought he not to do honor t~ this bureaucracy for being the first In the Soviet Union, one particular group stands out as possess­ to see, onesidedly, in contradistinction to old-type Marxists like ing all of these characteristics: the bureaucracy. It has become Lenin and Trotsky, that the proletarian state needed an entirely so important that even the communist party is subordinate to it. different method of analysis, and, therefore, evolved the theory of Through its leader, Stalin, the bureaucracy dictates the policy of socialism in one country as the only solution for the problems the Soviet Union to the party; and the party masses accept it, facing a proletarian' dictatorship? without daring to disagree. This bureaucracy was responsible for Ought he not, in actuality, to agree with Brandler and Love­ the theory of socialism in one country, as well as all the other stone? These men may not have clarified for themselves the basic theoretical caricatures of Marxism. principle upon which .their theories rest, but, in essence, they are We have reached the center of our problem: to seek those socia] putting into practise his principle. They say socialism in one factors which would explain not only the extraordinary power of country is the right theory for the Soviet Union j it is the world­ the bureaucracy today, but also why it had to pervert Marxism. shaking, never-to-be-forgotten contribution of Stalin to the theory A bureaucracy in modern society is an absolute necessity, for it of the working class. But it has its limitations, its geographical performs the very essential function of managing the social order. boundaries. All other theories, logically developed from this basic And so, the proletariat sets up one composed of a selection from conception, cannot be applied to the rest of the world, because it is its members of those it considers best suited' for the task. capitalist. To the rest of the world, the old-fashioned Marxian One may say the bureaucracy is an evil, but it isa necessary evil theories of democratic centralism within the party, united front, which no society can do without. But as Robert Michels long ago world revolution, etc., still apply with unabated theoretical force. pointed out, its existence, however necessary and important, often Hook, however, will have nothing to do with such philistine bring abuses in its train.* To prevent these abuses from flowering reasoning. He knows that the theory of socialism in one country into great blossoms of evil, a society or class must ever be on its is not only the basic source of the internal difficulties of the Soviet guard against the violation, by its bureaucracy, of what it has Union, but it is also the reason for the continued defeats of the come to consider its fundamental rights. Often however, special proletariat of the world. He knows it has no firm scientific basis; historical conditions may require that society or class to give up that those who accept it find their important conclusions always in these rights temporarily, or may actually prevent either from contradiction with the actual facts; that it destroys the possibility maintaining them. of any correct interpretation of social trends or proper preparation In the Soviet Union, special historical conditions existed which for the tasks of tomorrow. made it possible for the bureaucracy to usurp great and absolute Hook, too, if he were asked to explain the curious situation of a powers for itself and abrogate the fundamental rights of the proletarian state officially upholding doctrines which are non­ masses. The first of these conditions was the economic backward­ Marxian, in essence, would not give as his reason: the inapplica­ ness of Russia. Its economic backwardness meant, of course, an bility of the materialist conception to a controlled society; instead economic poverty that would take years to eradicate. The bureau­ he would make it very clear that no one can possibly understand cracy, which increased in numbers at a very rapid rate, was given the development of social theories in the Soviet Union, without economic privileges that made its standard of living far superior considering the economic basis, the productive relations, the level to the subsistence level of the majority of the proletariat and of' economic development, the relations of various sections or peasantry. Many of the bureaucrats also became members of the strata of a class to each other, etc. party, because of the advantages attached, the possibility, for in­ Let us try, then, to put Hook's advice into practise and see how stance, of achieving very high positions in the management of the materialist method helps to explain, even in a co "trolled society, industry and agriculture. Fearful of extreme poverty, and made the existence of an ideology in contradiction with its fundamental pessimistic by the long span of time necessary' to build a highly interests. industrialized society, the bureaucracy became extremely anxious to retain its special privileges and advantages. Therefore, it turned One of the fundamental presuppositions of the materialist conservative, afraid of innovations which might possibly upset the method is that the predominant political theories of a society are social balance to, its disadvantage, a turn characteristic of every the theories of the ruling class. In the Soviet Union, the prole­ bureaucracy under similar circumstances. Naturally, its conserva­ tariat is the ruling class j and yet its fundamental principles, its tism was molded in its character by the pressure and form of the ideology-Marxism-are, in practise, distorted and corrupted. proletarian state. In other words, it had to use the language of How explain this? It is a second principle of the materialist Marxism, and shape existing institutions to its purpose, in Qrder method that every class is not a homogeneous, completely inte­ to protect and defend itself. grated mass; it is divided into groups, the members of which are tied together by the fact that they perform a special function for The second condition was the defeat suffered by the German the social order. These functions are also the basis for the devel­ workers in 1923. Terribly frightened, the bureaucracy saw its opment of special interests peculiar only to a given group. These own existence threatened by the immanent possibility of a capital­ special interests, therefore, are often the causes for groups coming ist attack. From that time on, it rang the changes, in and out of into conflict with each other. At these critical moments of differ­ season, of capitalist intervention. Out of this fear, which meant, ence, each group tries to impose ideas on the others, which may be on the one hand, a lack of faith in the world p.roletariat, and on only to its own interests, or, despite the failure to recognize them the other, exaggerated ideas of the power of the bourgeoisie, grew as such, to the interests of all concerned. When theories are ac­ the theory of socialism in one country. This theory, in substance, cepted which are apparently in disagreement with the accepted said that the major task of the world proletariat was not making conceptions of a given ruling class, it is necessary, then, to look the world revolution, but aiding the Soviet Union in the building for the particular groups within that class who do play, because of a classless society within its geographic boundaries. of their social function, a significant role in the formation of *Michels goes further and gen­ to consider adequately the social ~Jicv. Such groups are nearly always distinguished by the fact eralizes his discovery into an and economic factors which

L • .' :.:. (; bntter taken care of economically; they are granted inalienable law of society which make, not only for the appear­ '~ .;:"0:' ::.1 p"v;h", .• ·~~, l~ke ~he u'"e of state automobiles, not per- he calls the Iron Law of Oli­ ance of abuses, but also for garchy. Hook. pointing out the their disappearance. (Vide, li.t1:. JJLmary members; and finally, they show in manner basic shortcoming of the Swiss Hook, p. 311 ff.) :::;V' ~", ,:' +lIe important role thpy are reqUired to play in that professor's an~lysis; a failure March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 73

The third factor was the peasantry. After the civil war, the to expel the Left in 1927. After that, the bureauc!'acy had aa N.E.P. was inaugurated as a means of restoring the destroyed easy time reducing the Right to impotence in the Soviet Unioa economic foundation. The N.E.P. brought economic revival, but and expelling them abroad. * also certain very great dangers, one from the side of the peasantry We see, then, that the materialist method is as adequate for ex­ who were rapidly being differentiated into rich and poor; the plaining the contradictory character of the theories of a controlled other, from increasing unemployment among the proletariat. Both society as it is in explaining the developments of capitalism. And together meant the possibility of counter-revolution. if the Left Opposition had not used this method, it would not have During the years of the N .E.P., the bureaucracy leaned invari­ exposed to the Russian proletariat its danger, or forced the bu­ ably on the peasantry because it was the source of all good things. reaucracy to carry out, however belated and distorted, policies Criticism by the workers was retaliated with the loss of jobs, for which saved the Soviet Union from utter destruction from within; the reserve army of the unemployed could always replace those even though historical conditions were such that it could not be who were fired. Thus bureaucratic intimidation and the constant the instrument for carrying out the correct policy. fear of starvation reduced the proletariat, already exhausted by Nevertheless are we not arguing against a straw man? Hook the revolution and the civil war, to an effective silence and passi­ was speaking of the classless society, not of the dictatorship of the vity. During this period the corruption and incompetence of the proletariat, which is still a class society even though transitional bureaucracy exceeded all bounds. in character? The objection is absurd, as is easily shown. If it Naturally, within the party itself-the domain within which all is assumed that the dictatorship, because it is a class society, can differences, at first, were fought out-there sprang up different be explained by historical materialism, then it follows, from our factions who expressed, in more or less complete ideological form, original hypothesis, that it has no control over economic forces. the reactions of different strata of the proletariat and of other But it can control them; there is a planned economy in the Soviet classes to social developments at home and abroad. One section, Union; therefore two things follow: ( a) it is not a class society, the Right, expressed the influence of the peasantry and the petty and (b) historical materialism cannot explain it. The dictator­ bourgeoisie upon it; another section, the Left, the interests of the ship, nevertheless, is a class society, even though transitional ill proletariat, as a whole; a middle section, Centrist in character, the character; therefore, this truth contradicts the assertion that no special needs of the bureaucracy within the Soviet dictatorship. class society can be controlled. Finally, since historical material­ The bureaucracy had no need to fear the Right, which was even ism is actually applicable to a controlled society, it invalidates more conservative than itself. Therefore, it used the Right with completely Hook's first argument. It must be admitted that actual whom it was broadly in agreement to deadly purpose in reducing control over economic forces does not involve repUdiation of his.­ the Left to a state of impotence. The bureaucratization of the torical materialism. party, the reformulation-in essence, the destruction-of the fun­ Rubin GOTESKY damental principles of democratic centralism within the party, was the basic prerequisite for the success of the bureaucracy. It ac­ ·Those who follow world and fraudulence of the evidence complished this task, with the aid of the Right, by methods known Soviet events know that the day used in an attempt to involve to bureaucrats the world over. of judgment for the bureaucra­ Leon Trotsky, and even the re­ The fourth and last condition which assured the victory of the cy must come. The proletariat cent turn to the Right-the do­ will not allow it to retain ir­ ing away with bread rations, the bureaucracy was the continued defeats of the world proletariat responsibly the seat of power parliamentary reforms shortly after 1923.* Though the defeats followed .from the completely forever. Already signs of this to be instituted which are in­ false evaluation and falsified Marxism of the Right and Center, are manifest in the regrettable tended to increase the voting the Soviet and international press was used to explain away these Kirov affair. The secrecy of strength of the peasantry-all the trials, the youth of the com­ indicate an attempt on the part defeats, suppress the documents of the Left Opposition, and finally munists supposedly complicit in of the bureaucracy, a desperate *See Draft Program, Strategy by Leon Trotsky. Pioneer Pub­ the crime, the actual complicity attempt, to avoid the fatal day of the World Revolution, Prob- lishers. of the G.P. U., the positive stu­ of reckoning by resting its lems of the Chinese Revolution, pidity of the arguments and the weight upon the peasants. The Abolition of the Bread Cards in the Soviet Union UP TO NOW, 55,000,000 Soviet Rus­ month, butter and still other special ra­ of fjve courses in the Kremlin restaurant sians received definite rations at definite tions. for the same sum. low-privileged-prices at exclusive distri­ In the better supplied distribution cen­ In the distribution centers, the following bution centers. The card system embraced ters (like those for the workers in heavy prices per kilogram were paid in 1933: bread, flour, barley, legumes, potatoes, industry), the norm was higher. The tech­ black bread, 27 copecks; white bread, 52 meat, lard, vegetables, sugar, fish, herring, nicians, the engineers, the artists, the scho­ copecks; m~at, 2 to 4 rubles; herrings, 3 to preserves; further, clothing, shoes, linen, lars, the foreigners had their special dis­ 10 rubles; sugar, 2 rubles; butter, 6 to 8 yarn, sewing needles, etc. tribution centers where they had an ample rubles. (These fig'.lres-like those that fol­ In these distribution centers established selection of definite amounts of normated low-are taken from the official Moscow for workers and employees, there was a commodities to buy from. The best distri­ reports.) daily bread ration of 800 grams· for the bution centers were those of the upper On April I, 1934, the bread prices were worker, 400 grams for the employee in the governmental, party and G.P.U. officials. increased 100% to 54 and 104 copecks re­ main cities; in the provinces, ·this norm The highest party and government officials spectively. went down to 500 and 300, and even to 200 were not bound by any norms. With these rations, it was very difficult and 100 grams per day in the hard tImes This intricate system of smafl, larger to manage. ,Whoever did not possess for­ of 1932-1933. In addition, there was re­ and largest privileges created social in­ eign currency, gold, silver and objects of ceived for the whole month one kilo of equality in the restaurant provisioning. value and thereby have the privilege of barley or legumes, a few kilo of potatoes, Whereas the working woman of a Moscow being able to buy· all goods in the "Torg­ from one-half to one kilo of meat, some textile factory received a cabbage soup and sin" stores at cheap prices, was compelled margarine, a couple of herrings, a half-kilo a piece of bread for 80 copecks*, the higher to purchase &upplementary food supplies in of sugar. "Shock brigaders" [udarniki] party official obtained an excellent menu the government "commercial stores" or on received from one to two kilos of meat per .100 copecks equals I ruble. Not quoted on the market (the free or the· kolkhoz mark­ ·100 grams is slightly more than one-fifth foreign exchange, the "normal" ( unin­ et). The commercial stores are govern­ of a pound; Boo grams is one and three· flated) ruble .used to equal the "normal" mental sales centers with appreciably in­ quarters pounds; a kilo is 1,000 gramS.-ED. American half-dollar.-ED. creased,but nonetheless controlled prices. Page 74 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March' 1935

In the commercial stores established in 13.50 rubles on January I, 1934. weakened agriculture has recuperated to the middle of 1933, prices per kilogram 27.00 rubles on April I, 1934 the point where bread is at hand for the were (figures in parentheses represent the 60.00 rubles from January I, 1935 on. population as a whole in town and country prices in the privileged distribution cen­ This is an increased burdening of the in adequate amounts. The gravest agrarian ters) : proletarian household of 13.50 rubles at crisis of Soviet- Russia-graver than the Rubles Rubles first, t1);n of an additional 33 rubles-a one during war communism-is beginning Black bread 2.00 (0.54) total of 46.50 rubles. to be overcome. White bread 3.00 ( 1.04) As against this, there is first a wage in­ Early in 1933, an old Moscow working Meat 10. to 12. (2. to 4.) crease on April I, 1934 of from 10% to woman told me: "I f we are to weather Butter 30.00 (6; to 8.) 15% for all workers and employees who these hunger years, we all ought to get the On the market, prices were· 2 to 4 rubles received less than 140 rubles per month (a Order of Lenin; we have earned it a thou­ per liter rap. I liquid quart] of milk, I total of 12,000,000 wage, salary, stipend and sand times more than the heroes of the ruble per egg, in addition to which there annuity recipients) ; and second, the present civil war." were vegetables and meat. The peasant wage increase of 16 rubles per person. Now they have put the very worst of the came to the market not as a seller but as The total wage increase in the course of hunger years behind them. But why must a purchaser of bread; he paid for it in coin the years amounts-for persons this advance be paid for by the workers or exchanged milk and eggs for it. Who earned more than 140 rubles with new sacrifices? The Soviet govern­ From January I, 1935 onward, the provi­ monthly-to 16 rubles ment was guided by the following consid­ sions card for bread, flour, barley and Who earned less than 140 rubles erations: legumes is abolished; the card system is to monthly-to 30 rubles remain in effect for the time being so far Who earned less than 100 rubles I. Bread is at hand, but even today it as other living needs are concerned. monthly-to 26 rubles suffices for the population as a whole only Instead of definite rations at privileged Who: earned less than 50* rubles with a certain restriction of consumption. prices, every consumer now receives any monthly-to 21 rubles. This restriction can be achieved either ad­ amount of goods he desires-but at higher The result of all this, therefore-cogent ministratively (by those very bread cards) prices. and on the basis of official Moscow figures or by market measures, by lowering the The whole Soviet Union has been di­ -is: After the abolition of the bread cards purchasing power. This time the decision vided into eight price districts. Goods are the. average person with an income has went for the second way. cheapest in the first district (Uzbekistan, additional expenses of 46.50 rubles and ad­ 2. In recent years the peasants bore the Turkmenistan) and dearest in the eighth ditional income of 30 rubles; the deficit is heaviest burdens. The present enactment (Far East) .. Moscow is part of the third, 16.50 rubles or-if one assumes the average shifts them; it signifies a heavier burdening and Leningrad part of the fourth price dis- wage to be the pretty high figure of 140 of the workers in favor of the peasants: a portion of the surplus revenue from the tdct. J rubles-12%. After the abolition of the The spread of prices among the districts bread cards, the real value of the average price increases is to be turned over by the is as follows: black bread from 0.80 rubles Russian wage, as compared with January government to the peasants in the form of to 1.50 rubles, white bread from 1.20 roubles 1934, has been diminished by twelve per­ raised governmental purchasing prices for to 2.80 rubles, flour from 1.35 to 3.50 cent. agricultural products. rubles. The elimination of the bread cards never­ 3. The largest portion of the surplus For a comparison with the prices up to theless registers an advance in economy revenues of the government is to be invested now, we take the fourth district (Lenin­ taken as a whole. Two years ago it was in industry, especially in the war industry. grad). In the following table, the hitherto impossible. At that time it would have led The price increases are a special form, existing privileged prices are in parentheses to complete chaos, to a war of everyone specific to Russia (where there can be no and the hitherto existing commercial prices against everybody. Now, disorganized and property taxes), of renewed indirect taxa­ are in brackets: tion. The tempoes of development of in­ Rubles Rubles Rubles *According to reports of the Commissariat dustry, which were somewhat slowed down Black bread 1.20 ( 0.54) [2.00] of Labor, in March 1934 around 270,000 in 1933 and 1934, will again be accelerated White bread 2.40 (1.08) [3.00] invalids in the Soviet Union received less at the expense of the urban working popu­ Flour 4.00 (2.00) [8.00] than 40 rubles support per month, and lation. (Europiiische Hefte.) Grits 6.20 ( 1.00) [10.00] around 300,000 beneficiaries of annuities Erich WOLLENBERG Pearl-barley 4.20 (0.80) [8.00] less than 20 rubles. PRAGUE) Jan. 18, 1935. Maccaroni 5.60 (1.20) [8.00] Peas 5.10 (0.80) [8.00] Beans 5.50 ( 0.80 ) [8.00] Stalin the '!:heoretician Rice 10.00 (2.00) [12.00] One sees immediately: an extraordinary THESIS: "It is not true that the theory I speak ahot.t the fact tbat, in 1905, it was price rise compared with the previous priv­ of the permanent revolution ... was ad­ nut ?'osa Luxemburg but Parvus and Trot­ iledged prices; but it is a burden upon the vanced in 1905 by Rosa Luxemburg and sky who advanced the theory of the 'perma­ worker's household essentially only with Trotsky. As a matter of fact, this theory nent' revolution against Lenin. This is en­ regard to the bread price, for up to now was advanced by Parvus and Trotsky."­ tirely in accord with historical facts. . . . the worker obtained from his distribution (Stalin in 1924; cf. Questions of Leninism, As regards Rosa Luxemburg, she, you see, center only slight amounts of the other Russian ed., p. 185) remained behind the scenes at that time, provisions anyway. ANTITHESIS (7 years later): It is !restraining herself from active struggle The additional burden is to be equalized "Parvus and Rosa Luxemburg ... who are against Lenin on this subject, preferring, by a wage increase. How does this work the authors of the utopian and semi-Men­ apparently, not to mix into the struggle as out? shevist schema of the permanent revolu­ yet. This total wage amount is increased in tion".-(Stalin in .1931; cf. On Some Ques­ "In my polemic against Radek, in my the budget year of 1935 by 4,200,000,000 tions in the History of Bolshevism, a Letter article, The October Revolution and the rubles; there are 22,000,000 wage and sal­ to the Editors of PROLETARSKAYA REVOLUT­ Tactic of Russian Communists, I bore hard ary recipients in the Soviet Union, so that SIA/ upon the question of Parvus, because Radek each one is to receive an average of 190 SYNTHESIS (7 months later): "Com­ in speaking about 1905 and the 'permanent' rubles per year more than at present-that rade Aristov, revolution, deliberately kept quiet about is, 16 rubles per month. "You have become befuddled, comrade Parvus. And he kept mum about Parvus, Every wage recipient has to take care of Aistov. because Parvus, after 1905, became an odi­ himself and in addition an average of one "There is no contradiction at all between ous figure, becoming a millionaire, and and a half mouths (55,000,00 who must my article, The October Revolution and the turning into a direct agent of the German receive victuals from 22,000,000 who re­ Tactic of Russian Communists (1924) and imperialists; and Radek did not want to ceive wages). my Letters to the Editors of PROLETARSKAYA connect the theory of the 'permanent' revo­ The monthly bread requirement in Rus­ REVOLUTSIA (1931). These two documents lution with the odious name of Parvus. He sia (where bread is the principal means of stress different aspects of the same ques­ tried to sneak around history. So, I made sustenance) amounts to 20 kilograms per tion, and you took it for a 'contradiction'. a frontal attack and spoiled Radek's man­ person, making 50 kilograms for 21 months. But there is no 'contradiction' here. reuver by reestablishing the historical truth, For these 50 kilograms, the worker paid: "In my article, The October Revolution, and giving Parvus his due. [See next page.] be reversed! Thus his revolt is confined to the fact that the aristocracy would not accept him, the middle class intellectual, as BOOKS one of its own. His republicanism has pre­ vented his ge~ting a peerag~. What he wants is a world in which his kind would apprentice at the age of 14 and hated it. just" naturally be peers. Wells' Autobiography His early reading and dreaming had given It is quite consistent with his views that him a sense of superiority, so he rebelled the spiritual peace and intellectual freedom not with but against labor. In his own of inquiry which the 18th century aristo­ EXPERIMENT IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. crat enjoyed should be Wells' private no­ Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very words, his "want of enthusiasm for the proletarian ideal" goes back to those early tion of the good life. He is not blind to Ordinary Brain (Since 1866). By H. G. the fact that such a life rests upon the WELLS. 432 pp. New York. The Mac­ years. He reached London University in time shoulders of sweating, ignorant masses. millan Company. $4. But that is on the whole just a subject for It has been H. G. Wells' job to voice the to study biology under T. H. Huxley. At this point Wells' radicalism began to as­ research. Besides, he asks, wouldn't the non-revolutionary radicalism of the middle masses benefit by this leisure which their class and make it respectable. Noone has sume a definite shape. He acquired a "feel" of the scientific concept of evolu­ labor has made possible? Can't intellec­ done so more successfully. Certainly no tuals use this leisure to draw up the b~ue­ writer can boast of having more thorough­ tion, and translated it literally into social terms. Social evolution became for him prints of a society in which it will not·. be ly exposed, though quite unwittingly, the necessary to have a working class at all, futility of this radicalism and the reaction­ an inevitable and good thing. The idea that humanity is gradually moving towards to draw these blueprints quietly, uninter­ ary character it assumes in times of ~risis. a "world scientific state" began to crystal­ rupted by the constant pressure of' events? In his Experiment in Autobiography, lize. Years later he was to set down the He and his kind hold the key to a better Wells gives us a report on his job. result of his thinking on the subject in his world, the World State. True, to get hu­ He describes his life as the growth and manity to see this requires a "bold handling development of an average brain. He Outline of History. There was no room for the middle class of stupidity, obstruction and perversity". never tires of repeating this. It sounds the But in the last analysis the responsibiiity keynote not only to his life but to his ideas. intellectual -in' the 'scheme of contemporary English society. Wells was acutely aware lies with mankind. After all, he can't do It has earned for his autobiography the more than show the way I The implication: title of "Honest". of that. He saw that teaching was ham­ pered on all sides' by old pedagogical and Mankind is stupid and perverse if it doesn't Born of lower middle class parents, in follow IWells. At this point he pouts. What a squalid environment, IWells considers his moral forms. It was in no way possible to teach science, as Latin and history had then becomes of Progress, one wonders? rise to the position of an intellectual as an On the one hand Wells envies the "spa­ accident. When a child, a broken leg limited hitherto been taught, without destroying its social implications. The reform of the ciousness and leisure" enjoyed by the aris­ his activity to reading. It is in this period tocrats, on the other he shares the typical of his life that the roots of his radicalism educational system became therefore a leading issue for him. Such a reform middle class mistrust of the proletariat and are to be found. His early reading made its organizations. He would call himself him conscious of the drabness of his home. would not only speed the development of science itself, but would make its findings a socialist, and sometimes does, but the His mother was a simple, religious woman; idea of socialism has been hopelessly cor­ he became passionately anti-religious. available to the thousands of other little Wellses who had not broken a leg. In rupted by Marx. He played about with the Much as today, it was both a custom and Fabians for a while, but criticized them an economic necessity in the '80s for mid­ addition, with so much new and promising material released from the drapery emporia, severely: "Let us have a new world, they dle class parents to indenture their children said, and they called it socialism. But they as apprentices in the trade they wished would it not be possible to transform through education the whole of civilized did not realize that a new world, new in them to follow. Wells became a draper's life? scale and power was coming up all about It is typical of Wells' thinking. that while them." What is this new world? It is the "That is how matters stand regarding he asks very tentative questions about the locomotive, the transatlantic liner, and the my article, The October Revolution and the world, he is already unshakably convinced growing respectability of H. G. Wells. He Tactic of Russian Communists. of the answers. He contributed nothing didn't like the Fabians because they were "As regards my Letters to the Editors of scientific to the theory of evolution, but too political and narrow. He wanted them PROLETARSKAYA REVOLUTSIA, there I dealt Progress (evolution plus education) has to become the nucleus of a new world aris­ with the other side of the question, to wit, become a matter of profound moral signi­ tocracy, but they wouldn't do anything of with the fact that Rosa Luxemburg and ficance to him. the kind. Parvus were the authors of the theory of The form his radicalism assumed was His contempt and hatred of Marx know the 'permanent' revolution. Again, this is moulded by his childhood reactions. Fur­ no bounds. Marxism is not the least of also entirely in accord with historical facts. thermore these reactions were based upon the "stupidities and perversities" that stand Not Trotsky, but Rosa Luxemburg and experiences shared by the great majority of in the way of his world state. He calls Parvus were the authors of the theory of the middle class. Hence the importance Marx a "stuffy, egocentered, malicious the 'permanent' revolution. Not Rosa Lux­ and popularity of Wells. He has been able theorist". The theory of the class strug­ emburg, but Parvus and Trotsky. advanced to articulate the hopes and aspirations of gle merely released "an epidemic of spite" the theory of the 'permanent' revolution, in his class. Politically and intellectually he which retards mankind in its march to­ 1905, and actively struggled for it again-st has lived them. wards order, peace, and light. Lenin. Subsequently, Rosa Luxemburg To follow the idea of Progress through­ Here the tragedy of Wells the Radical also began to struggle actively against the out Wells' life, i~s twists and turns, the is made evident. Suspicious of working­ Leninist schema of revolution. But that manner in. which it becomes interwoven men's organizations, he was condemned to was already after 1905. with minor themes and subjective moods is play the role of valet to the governing class "That is all. to witness an amazing spectacle of intel­ just as surely as his mother had been the [signed] "J. Stalin". lectual vanity and dishonesty. He revolted chambermaid to a gentlewoman. But his The above letter is dated January 25, against academic tradition, and pretentious mother knew she was a chambermaid, and 1932. It was published seven months later vagueness became "free and searching she believed in God. Her !nfiated offspring (cf. Bolshevik, No. 16, August 30, 1932). thought". His struggle for internal and on the' other hand, with his conceited What a synthesis I What a style! What a external peace, his yearning for the "per­ naivete, invented the slogan: "A war to man! fect study", has been identified in his mind end wars", and thought he was doing his To complete the picture, we need only with a struggle between good and evil in bit for a happy new world! add what comrade Trotsky once said: society. "Make the world safe for intellec­ Wells complained towards the end of the "Stalin's falsifications are conscious in so tuals I" war that "we were used as decoys". He far as they are dictated at each given mo­ He has much contempt for what he calls became disillusioned like so many others. ment by entirely concrete and personal in­ the "governess-trained minds" which con­ But did he learn anything? According to terests. At the same time, they are semi­ trol the British Foreign Office. But he has him his attitude at the outset of the war conscious in so far as his congenital ignor­ no real feeling of social indignation or was not wrong; he was just a man ahead ance places no impediment whatever in hatred for the ruling class. Just a tinge of of his time. He supported the worst mass front of his theoretical propensities." envy which takes the form of (II am as murder for profit in history, urged workers John G. WRIGHT good as they are", a thought that can easily to slaughter. because he hoped that the war Page 76 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935 would be the "last wave of folly" and the ulation and surmise. The question of or­ ization of the ~vernment of Milwaukee World State would emerge. He toyed a ganization does not concern him. This after the socialist victory in 1911. He bit with the idea of a League of Nations, gives him an enormous advantage over drafted many laws, civil senice, public but no .... he had overestimated Humanity! scientists and Marxists. It permits him to utility, and industrial. The last several When he saw thousands cheering the re­ look way ahead of them, untrammelled by years of his public life were spent in con­ turning soldiers, peace, and the full dress any immediate problems. He even goes so ciliating conflicts between capitalist groups. parades, his only thought was: "And this is far as to speculate about what will happen All these activities he regards as demon­ the proletariat of dear old Marx in being. when the sun cools off. He is a man ahead strations of his theory of the collective .. • . This is the stuff that old dogmatist of his time. agreement. counted upon for his dictatorship of the Anticipating a legend. Wells goes to On the theoretical side the position does proletariat." Wells had reassumed his role sleep for three hundred years. During his not provide an argument for the fact that of the Free and Searching Thinker. Long prolonged somnolence many things hap­ even if the collective agreement were wide­ live the day when such Thinkers and De­ pen: Wars, revolutions, periods of Fascism ly practised, the objective relation between coys will govern our destinies ! We can and reaction, in the course of which books profits and wages, with consequent accu­ count upon Wells to do his bit for the next are burned, thousands upon thousands mulation of capital, would remain to de­ imperialist War. killed, and 'Wells' name has been forgotten. stroy t,his equilibrium. On the practical After 1918 he realized things were a bit Finally the revolution' is successful, social­ side, it never has worked, a point conceded different. The Russian revolution and the ism is built, the communist society estab­ in Commons' expressed pessimism. In­ Treaty of Versailles left their mark even lished. Wells wakes up, looks around him tangible elements such as the potential value on Wells. Something must be done to and says: "Ah! I see the world has finally of an agitational program to bring pressure speed the coming of the new World Eco­ decided to follow my advise." on the government during a strike, to rally nomy. He still talks about education, but John HART the unemployed for mass picketing and the after forty years of thinking on the sub­ general proletarian and petty bourgeois ject, the most constructive suggestion he public for a boycott, etc., make an actual 'has to offer is: "I wish I had a virus with test of strength necessary as the basis even which one might bite people and make them Labor mslorian for a temporary agreemerit. The historical aad for education." But more serious is fact is that practically all powerful unions his great scheme, "The Open Conspiracy", MYSELF. By JOHN R. COMMONS. 201 pp. have been established and sustained by ac­ whereby middle class intellectuals, both New York. The Macmillan Company. $3. tual strikes. The miners' conference, which professional and Thinkers, would band to­ John R. Commons is the outstanding Commons observed existed 0111y by virtue gether and save the world from the ortho­ American labor scholar of his generation­ of the fact that the miners had established dox stuffed shirts, Right and Left. This a generation noteworthy in our labor move­ their union a few years previously by a idea has since had its practical application ment for the rise and domination· of the strike. in this country in the shape of our "Brain Gompers-Green regime in the American The un-democratic centralization of au· Trust", trying to outwit both the "rapa­ Federation of Labor. As the academic thority requisite to the position, is a nega­ cious capitalist" and the impatient worker. counterpart of Gompersism, his theory of tion of the true collective. The leader does Although W ells' Open Conspiracy, like the relatiops between labor and capital is not represent a collective when the collec­ the "government by experts" idea of the an elaboration of the official philosophy of tive is rebelling. Dictatorial leadership most radical of our New Dealers, could the American Federation of Labor: collec­ leads to bureaucracy. Bureaucracy devel­ lend itself to Fascism, it would be quite tive bargaining and simon-pure craft un­ ops its own needs, as apart from the col­ mistaken to think that Wells might ever ionism, bureaucratically controlled. Com­ lective, and the agreements it makes are become a Fascist. He is too mature a lib­ mons has recently given us his complete influenced by these needs. An internal con­ .eral. He hardly mentions Fascism at all. theory of the collective action of conflicting flict is thereby set up in the collective. The When he does it is to dismiss it as child­ interests in his magnum opus, Institutional "possession" of unions by their leaders, :ishness and stupidity. It is a phenomenon Ecollomics. Myself is an autobiographical which Commons encouraged and used as which he can't explain because it runs account of his participation in such activi­ a necessary part of his Civic Federation -counter to his religion of Progress. He is ties, which he offers as an explanation of activity, encouraged the already growing one of those "enlightened" people who, the genesis of his ideas. bureaucracy in the American Federation of should Fascism come to their country, will It is impossible in a short review to deal Labor. In an attempt to fill these cracks blindly walk over the edge of the cliff at adequately with Commons' economic theory. in his position Commons brands militant the bottom of which lies a concentration Essentially it recognizes conflicting econo­ trade union leaders as "hot-heads" or "in­ camp. The Stalinists have nothing on him mic interests ( fundamentally labor and tellectuals". Exclusion of the latter, how­ in this respect. In fact I rather think he capital) as the kernel of the problem. It ever, excludes himself and the recommenda­ is the kind of intellectual they would love proposes a solution through a collectiviza­ tion. To explain the influence of the "hot­ to have in one of their "Against War and tion of these interests and the adoption heads", he is forced into a contempt for Fascism" organizations, if only they could without arbitration of a peaceful agreement the masses in the trade unions. "I based catch him. He is a social-Fascist. between them, based on a mutual recogni­ it [his theory] on leaders, bosses and con­ I f one were to approach Wells and ask tion of the relation of forces. It rests on a querors of the Malthusian more or less him: "But don't you think that it is im­ volitional psychology, and a centralization stupid and passionate masses." The col­ portant to fight for the immediate demands of authority in the respective collectives lective dissolves into an aggregation, voli­ of the workers?" he would undoubtedly and requires accordingly that trade union tion into coercion. answer: "Oh. very possible, but I can't be leaders gain "possession" of the u~ion The rise of the A. F. of L. gave, in the bothered with that, I am thinking of the (through deprivation of local strike rights, past, a degree of plausibility to Commons' future." What then, of the future? He through the withholding of national funds, theory. Trade unions in light industry, in­ has spent a great deal of fime thinking etc.). In brief, the theory says: don't fight volving only skilled labor, and organized about it. He owes us a nice blueprint; the it out-write it out! on craft lines during a period of budding kind that will save generations to come Commons conceived his theory from the imperialism and expanding capitalism, the trouble of planning that would other­ observations he made at a joint conference found it possible to make moderate pro­ wise be in store for them. But from all of miners and their employers in 1901 which gress with a minimum -of struggle. "Good" we can gather the World State will realize he named "Constitutional Government in employers came into existence ready to buy itself more or less automatically. If any Industry". He gave the theory its first test off the aristocracy of labor, white the mass­ part of it doesn't, that will be taken care when he participated in the National Civic es of unskilled in light industry, and most of "by myself and a few other people that Federation as liaison man between labor of the workers in heavy industry remained inhabit my world". He sees signs of this leaders and the Federation. During his unorganized and defenseless against un­ emergence here and there in the acts of long career as professor of economics and checked exploitation. Today in the period some individual or in' the draft of some labor historian at Wisconsin University, he of declining capitalism none of these fac­ movement. Since he is unable in any way served periodically in many local and na­ tors exists, and the theory, as theory, re­ to describe the mechanism of this process, tional governmental capacities. Most often tains only a historical interest as a by­ he can choose his illustrations at random he was a conciliator. He became a force product of the halcyon days. In practise, according to his fancy, a fancy clearly in Wisconsin politics, supporting LaFol­ however without its historical economic dominated by his class interests. The more lette until the latter opposed the war, and base it becomes entirely reactionary. Con­ obscure an idea, the wider the field of spec- aided in an advisory capacity the reorgan- ciliahon today is strikebreaking, as in steel March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 77 and autos. Postgate attempts to be scientific. He which these tactics flow. Commons' life has not been without states his question precisely on the first Nevertheless, this theoretical failing is, social effect. He is one of the few out­ page: "The object of this book is to an­ in a sense, the strength of the book, and standing American intellectuals who have swer, as scientifically as possible, the ques­ the reason why-in spite of itscheapnelfS devoted their lives to participation in the tion: 'How can a [social] change be and superficiality-it should be read widely labor movement. Unlike Ely, De Leon, brought about l' Given that the readers of and thought about at length by serious rev­ Hillquit and others, he has not been identi­ this book desire a thorough social change, olutionists. This book does indeed deal fied a~vely as a partisan of the labor and that they have some adequate idea of with strategy and tactics, above all with movement. In action he has always been the measures that radical reformers should the concrete plans for taking power in the a conciliator. His positive value to the labor apply when once in power, there still re­ present era, and it is precisely these con­ movement lies in his scholarly productions. mains the question: 'How can power be crete and practical problems that have been A pioneer in the field of American labor taken over?'" He attempts to answer the most grossly and tragically neglected by history, he is responsible, together with question by reviewing the classic answers Marxists. There has been for too tong a Professor Ely, for having assembled the that have been given to it in the past; by time the naive belief that correct tactics wilt best collection of labor literature in the estimating their validity in the light both automatically 1l0w from correct theory; country at Madison, the essence of which of historical examples of their application and consequently the fight of Marxists has wa$ published in IgoS in ten volumes, The and of contemporary developments in the been far too exclusively a fight for prin­ DocumtJfJ'ary History of American Indus­ mechanism of power; and by considering ciple. Naturally this fight had to be made, trial S octety. Later he edited and contri­ in the struggle for power-the general and must continue. Moreover, it is true buted to those most informative volumes, the usefulness of certain specific practises that without correct principle, tactics, in The Hislory of Labor ·in the Uniled States, strike, financial pressure, armed revolution. the long run, are sure to be wrong. But it the standard work in the field for the period Postgate examines the positions held is far from the case that correct tactics covered. His other writings, beginmng in with respect to his central question by will automatically flow from principles cor­ 1894, ·are voluminous. He has earned the Fascism, syndicalism, anarchism, Blanquism. rect in the abstract. Correct tactics require title of dean of American labor historians. He finds them all wanting both theoretically intelligence, effort, activity. Indeed, a His students have become a movement­ and by the test of history. To the general Marxian principle is distinguished by just the Commons school of labor writers-and strike he grants a certain efficacy, particu­ the fact that it gets meaning and content they have a majority in the field. Over larly the first time it is tried within a coun­ only through correct revolutionary activity thirty of them are in the "brain trust" at try, and for negative purposes ("preventing -that it cannot be even "correct" merely Washington tod~. As he says of himself, a war or defending an attacked govern­ as principle, as abstraction. "I am not a person, I am a syndicate." ment") . Nevertheless, the general strike, It is time for a re-direction of energies. This autobiography is the history of an so far as the more positive problem of We know the correct principles. We must important school of liberal thought in Am­ achieving drastic social change goes, "re­ apply them in stimulating and guiding a erica from the days of its enthusiastic Re­ quires other means--electoral or military­ movement. We must stop relying on a publican origin in the Civil War, through to bring it to final success, and it is very mystic faith in "the inevitability of com­ years of petty bourgeois reaentment at the difficult to manreuver". The control over munism" to make things turn out all right ruthless growth of monopoly and hope for electoral machinery makes parliamentary in the end, so long as we repeat the right the growth of a trade union balance, to a hopes illusory. "Armed revolution", more­ phrases; and thereby excuse our practical contempo.rary pessimism before the onrush over, "must be wholly rejected from our stupidities. They will turn out all right in of Fascism. arsenal. Direct armed revolt is no longer the end if Marxists make them. His last word on his life work is a pessi­ practical", even though a discreet use of The major problems of the lPay are prac­ mistic confession of failure. "I concede to violence on certain occasions may be effec­ tical problems. The great value of Post­ my radical friends that my trade union tive within restricted limits. gate's book is to help drive this lesson home. philosophy has always made me a conserv­ Indeed, Postgate ends by rejecting all If he gives the wrong answers, he at least ative. It is ~t revolutions and strikes that traditional methods for effecting social asks the right questions. And where are 'We want, but collective bargaining on some­ change as having either been proved use­ the right answers to be found 1 The un­ thing like an organized equilibrium of less by history or been made useless by the fortunate truth is precisely: Nowhere. The equality. This I take it, was the social contemporary development of military practical methods of aU branches of the philosophy of Samuel Gompers. It seems technique and propaganda control. This revolutionary movement, both with refer­ to me the only way to save us from Com­ conclusion, though hardly satisfactory, is ence to their' day by day activities and their munism, Fascism or Nazism. Yet my em­ at least more intelligible than the abrupt plans up to and including the seizure of ployer friends are opposed to it, or seeking right about face of the last chapter. Here, power and the workers' rule, are a chaotic to control it. I think they are leading us to in the most romantic denial of all that has compound of Paris Commune, pre-war so­ Fascism." The great conciliator surrenders preceded in the boook, Postgate makes his cial dem\)(ratic trade union 2nd parliamen­ before the advance of reaction. jump into the Labour party. There, he tary habits, and the October revolutionA DemUs BROWN states, revolutionists should gather to build Nowhere is the realization that capitalism a kind of party within a party, a band of in rapid decline and capitalism with mod­ "storm troopers of labour", who, when the em military and publicity methods is a far To Make a Revolution Labour party is voted into power ( which different matter from pre-war capitalism.. he had previously ruled out as impossible). And being far different, so must be the rev­ will see to it th~t the party carries througb olutionary methods that oppose it. HOW 'f() MAKE A REVOLUTION. By the social revolution. }UY¥O)fD W. PogroATE. The Vanguard J. w. Press. New York. 199 pp. $1.90. ThII whole book is characterized by what might be called political superficial­ From one point of view, this is a con­ ity. Postgate remains throughout on the Problems of the Pacific temptible book. There is such an air of plane of strategy and tactics, never digging pretentions "realism", of hard-boiled "fac­ down to the theoretic roots of the questions STORM CLOUDS OVER ASIA. Out' ing the facts", like a Boy Scout at his first he attempts to analyze. This is strikingly Growing Pacific Problem. By ROBERT S. sex talk. A skillful snobbery is woven into evident in his treatment of Marxism and PICKENS .. Funk and Wagnalls Co. New the style, which suggests that reader and anarchism. Nowhere does he deal with the York. x+ 242 pp. $1.50. author have a private un

this country headlong into the Pacific mael­ appeared before the recent change in :policy replaced by a decadent sneer; the eMphasis strom to put an end once for all to the towards Soviet Russia. has shifted from wholesome life to' 'at des­ uncertainty as to who shall be master in By far the best chapter in a' book that perate concern with existence. on the lowest the Pacific. The ruling class in the United offers little. beyond the weU .. known facts, is level of blind, primitive sensation. . Scien­ States has to stake its future on the out­ that which treats of Roosevelt's New Deal tific thought, instead of pointing 'the :way come of war, for it is determined that in the Pacific. Here the writer drops the to social improvement, has goose-stepped American and not Japanese imperialism tone of cant and presents the facts realis­ all along the reactionary line of marcb; shall subjugate China and then all Asia for tically. Roosevelt's financial policies have "scholarship has been a brilliant adjunct of the purposes of exploitation. been us~d wherever possible to combat the the counter-revolution". Progress to the The "literary" preparation for the in­ financial penetration of Japan into China. post-war sophisticate has become a hollow evitable war in the Orient will soon take This is shown by the remonetizing of silver catchword; our cultural energy is expended on the proportions of a flood of propaganda and by the loan made through the R.F.C., in a mad psychology of escape. We blind to justify all the actions deemed necessary ostensibly for the purchase of American OUr eyeS, we flee from the horror of social by monopoly capitalism. Pickens sets the cotton, actually to be converted into cash reality. tone for the rallying of the masses to the for the purchasing of American munitions Schmalhaus-en finds the solution of our "just" cause of the Morgans and -Lamonts and to aid Chinese war preparations. Roos­ cultural and psychic dilemmas to be a and to aid them to see the righteousness of evelt is treading softly, but preparing "the social one. For him, as for every thinking sending the navy to defend the future of big stick". He is completely militarizing psychologist, the slogan is: mens faM in the Am~rican bankers in the East. N atur­ the Pacific. Thus the Hawaiian govern­ societate sana-for the prerequisite of nor­ ally it is the Japanese who are alone re­ ment is undergoing drastic reorganization, mality is the stimulus of a healthy social sponsible for making it impossible to pre­ with a "mainland" governor working under environment. How, he asks, can a well­ serve the peace of the world. Of course in the control of the U.S. navy. A tremendous functioning mind be reared, or a mal-func­ the past American imperialism did play a naval base is being constructed in Hawaii. tioning mind adjusted, in a society ram­ Tole that one cannot justify, but this was The navy has been sent permanently into pant with conflict and shot through with more through blundering and ineptness of the Pacific to layout its strategy and to be frenzied individualism? The, Freudians statesmen than by design. And at any rate ready for The Day. As to the Philippines, hemmed in by their bourgeois thought, can modern America is different and has mend­ Pickens almost froths at the mouth at the aim only at returning the neurotic mind to ed its ways. And not only tJte United criminal idea of relinquishing them at the the mediocre, the statistical average-but States but all the major powers-except moment .when they become of such para­ can a mind out of gear be adjusted toa Japan! "All the major powers excepting mount importance. "The Hawes-Cutting­ social . order which is itseff maladjusted, Japan have come to the realization that o~d Hare Bill, purporting to give them their rife with maddening antagonisms? It must methods [of imperialist plundering] have independence, is the dirtiest blot on the be clear enough that, if mental and emo­ not worked either towards peace or pros­ soiled pages of the history of American tional development is molded and canalized perity.)' At the moment Italy is proving dealings in the Philippines." Recognition of by socio-economic reality (as amply proved this by dropping bombs on the aggressive Soviet Russia is shown to have given pause by genetic . and child psychology) , then Abyssinians, the United States shows its to the Japanese and at the same time to human potentialities can be actualized ()nly idealist aspirations in Cuba and Bolivia, have stiffened the resistance of the workers' in a milieu which is stimulating and liber­ France and Spain are heartbroken each state. Pickens wrote the book before Roose­ ating, rather than inhibitory and .conflict­ time they are "forced" to bayonet the na­ velt gave the clear indication recently that breeding. When the whole rotten super­ tives of North Africa, etc. It is tragically his aim is to involve the Japanese in a war structure threatens imminent 'collapse, unfortunate that the Japanese people (and against the Soviets, with the American Schmalhausen' insists that we must contern they alone!) groan under the yoke of a bourgeoisie preparing during this war to ourselves with the maladjustments of s0- brutally rampant militarism, still feudal in reap the benefits at the expense of both the ciety 'rather than with those of the indivi­ >character and under no restraint of govern­ weakened combatants. This is the essence dual-for the former ate primarv, the latter ment since they control their government of the New Deal in the Pacific. derivative. in the vise of armed dictatorship. Surely Jack WEBER Schmalhausen concludes that our cOn­ it is clear to the entire world that "the temporary culture is "insane", ."neurotie", sincere but childlike idealism of the -U. S., Neurotic Society "psychotic", "psychoneurotic"; our social and the enlightened selfishness of Eutope order suffers from a "cultural psychosis". have gone on ·the rocks of a highly devel­ But with this analysis we must take iSSue. oped and cynical Japanese militarism". The THE NEW ROAD TO PROGRESS. By To become indignant at the' dominant social 'situation in the Pacific "will show whether SAMUEL D. SCHMALHAUSEN. xi+ 409 ideology is admirable, but in the baste of the peace can be kept by a country which pp. New York. Falcon Press. $3. our attack we must not confuse categories. has not been subdued by war. It is the It is understandable that the "scientific" And to diagnose the social struct\l'te as trial of strength between intelligence and journals have greeted this book with a cam­ psychopathological is to do just that:· for force." paign of stony silence. The senSe of dis­ we at~ arguing by analogy from the indi­ The special pleading for an imperialism aster which it· conveys is disturbing enough vidual organism to some sort of social or­ that threatens, in seeking wotld hegemony, to the bourgeois theorists, but that the only ganism, 'and thenapplyi~ tenns descrip­ to engulf the earth in wars more destruc­ solution available should be the refreshing tive of th~ fOflrtet tt> the latter witboat tive more devastating than any the world therapy of revolutionary Marxism-no, that justifying the carry-over.· nas ' yet seen-'for American capitalist tech­ is too much. Now, clearly, such a theory of social nique will introduce a new scale of. mea~­ Ernest Sutherland Bates has well said, of patholOgy must assume that society is an urement in the powers of destructIOn-IS this book that it "arouses and sust~rns t1'l*t mingled with a superficial, journalistic organism with its parts welt or badly Of­ sense of horror, that feeling of being con­ dered in some quasi-biological sense. But survey of the forces at work in A~ia. Pro.. fined in a madhouse", that every thinking found social (class) analysis is far beyond the organic concept of society (Hetbert person must sometimes experience in the Spencer, Paul de Lilienfeld) has for the the depths of the author. After a cata­ contemporary world. For Dr. Schmalhau­ loguing of the events of the Chinese revo­ most part .been discarded in sociology. And sen has illuminated our bourgeois society to a. Marxist, above all, it must be patent lutions, Pickens draws a great sigh of re­ with Marxian insight; he has searched out lief that Chiang Kai-Shek showed real that society in its structure and function the conflicts of our decaying social order exhibits laws peculiar .to it alone, not as ability by beheading the proletarian revolu­ in their most far-reaching and subtle re­ some hypothetical super-organistnbut as a tion and ending the communist mena~e. flections, as they appear in religious obscur­ unique organization in' moti()R. Just as the Thus was defeated the purpose of Borodtn, antism, familial disorganization, individual bodily organism is' governed by laws other that -genius of revolution who understood maladjustments, and reactionary social than those which apply to its c~llular com­ the Chinese mind as nobody had ever done philosophy. Once the tissue of crumbling ponents, so the social structure presents before (Pickens' version), who sought "to capitalism has been ripped apart, he finds brIng on complete chaos". The social vol­ a symbol of contemporary civilization in ·This type ot reasoning, of course, is not 'Canoon which Japanese militarism rests the picture of "God committing suicide iIi unique to Schmalltausep: R~ad Sain ( of is dism'issed with a few sentences of ac­ a speakeasy". ltome-s~-honte turns out the Univers~ty of Ftodda) has character­ knowledgment. The Soviet Union is dealt to be the cradle of pathology, 'love no longer ized our society as "scliizQld," and Dt~ Tri­ with gingerly ,as the possible ally of the a bond but a bondage. gant gurrow has a theory of. "social in­ U. S. in the coming struggle. But the book In our outlook he sees the joyous mood sanity". March 1935 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Page 79 aspects which cannot be referred bade -to logic that he considers competitive in<;livi­ Briefer Mention its .. component individuals nor described in dualism inevitable, the mere exp..essioJiof terms of those·:individuals. Psychopatho­ an instinctive-driv-e toward ego ..&ominii.ti3n. HAlts ~ES THE WORLD. By LISA logy, by defirition, .. refers to a condition. of So it turns out that capitalists are born, TETZNER. Translated by Margaret Gold­ the individual, and therefore is without not made. smith. 252 pp. New York. Covici Friede. meaning when applied to a culture. $2. Schmalhausen has dealt a blow to all in­ Parents and teachers have been strug­ ~ It is for this reason that sociologists now stinct- and caste-psychology by indicating speak of social disorganisation rather than gling along with very little literature to the plasticity of human nature and its vari­ help them teach the class struggle. Here of Bocial pathology .(cf. Elliott and Merrill, ation with the social milieu. It would be Social Disorganisation). The analogical is an answer to the most dialectical and lit­ hard to find another such lucid elaboration erary prayer. A little boy's adventures aU argument. has, simply, turned out to be of Marx's dictum that "the whole of his­ fruitless. . Thus Schmalhausen is brilliant over the world, on a flying rabbit, in search tor)" is 'nothing but a continual transforma­ of bread for his widowed mother, is the in listing those characteristics of Fascist tion of human nature". This book makes barbarism which seem to resemble the syn­ theme. The international approach is im­ it tragically clear how bourgeois family plicit-it is made clear that there is no dromes 'of neurosis; yet he has so far over­ life, frenzied competition, and catastrophic stepped the limits of anology that the other, bread without work, and very little bread imperialist conflict extort their psychic with work, except for the favored few, all social aspects of Fascism recede to the toll. It becomes understandable, after back-ground. True, Hitler may be an ego­ over the world. Nowhere except in the reading this work, that the Freudians Soviet Union are hungry and homeless maniac, a paranoid, a pervert, and a dozen should concentrate on the reproductive other psychopathic things rolled up into one children cared for and given a chance to rather than the productive process, that earn their bread as well as study and play. -yet the most significant thing about him they should formulate a theory of death­ is' that ((his fantasy and delirium are m The rabbit is unable to grasp the sense instincts to account for the suicidal atmos­ of human arrangements, and tries to per­ expedient conformity with his real political phere which pervades modern life. After mms" (Trotsky). Individual deviations suade Hans to become a rabbit too. But plunging into such .a philosophy of despair, Hans prefers to remain a human being and from the' norm are selected and elevated by we can well appreciate the therapeutic value capitalism to the status of a socia-political struggle for a better world. The most deli­ of the new attitudes which are coming into cate balance between childish phantasy and movement. Such social selection and em­ being in Soviet Russia. phasis cannot in itself be dubbed insane unrelenting reality are maintained, with .a (the term refers to the individual and is In short, by indicating the primal impor­ constant play of humor and inventivenes$ therefore meaningless in this context), but tance of the social environment in the de­ that keeps children (even young enough to oQeYs quite logical and determinable laws termination of the individual, Schmalhausen be read to) on tenterhooks to hear the end. peculiar to the social sphere. I am sure has paved the way for psychological re­ I f one were to quibble, it would be pos­ that Schmalhausen would be the first to search which is as important as that which sible to point out; first of all that the trans­ admit the social and economic rOots of Robert Briffault (The M oth.ers) and Ruth lation should have been better-the book is Fascism-and yet he confuses capitalism Benedict (Patterns of Culture) have begun a work of art and must have been better as the cause of insanity and its possible in anthropology. The thesis underlying literature in German, second that near the social significance with the insanity itself. both lines of thought is the same: it is end there is a hint of pacifism and -class But this shortcoming in Schmalhausen's man's social existence which determines his collaboration where the little rich~ boy de­ work is not to be compared with the wealth consciousness-and his normality. On this cides to go home and ask his father not of constructive thinking which he has given basis, we need a drastic revision of our to make any more guns. Also there is a us. His most important contribution, it definitions of normality and deviation-we Negro cannibal tribe that is perhaps a ttifte se.ems to me, has been to turn the flood­ need more detailed analysis of the nature. out of place in a book showing the exploita­ lights of Marxism upon bourgeois.psychol­ and function of the social. environment. tion of colonial peoples. But these faults ogical theory, especially· upon its most fruit­ Schmalhausen's book is a significant step are small indeed when one realizes that ful product, psychoanalysis. In his discus­ in this direction: no one can doubt, after here for the first time is a book for children sion of ''What Marx Can Teach Freud", digesting it, that the crying need is for entirely and uncompromisingly concerned he presents not only the conflict between social rather than individual therapy, that with making the class struggle real and two great minds, but the to-the-death strug­ "the mood of the world is Marxian, not interesting-and successful to boot. gle being waged between the philosophies Freudian". Bernard WOLFE Florence BECKER of individualism and communism. As Schmalhausen puts it, "the Freudian goal is' a sane mind: the Marxian goat is a sane society". Her~ is the crux of the matter: BOOKS FOR WORKERS Freudianism, limited by a bourgeois ideolo­ For NEW INTERNATIONAL Readers gy, is egocentric; revolutionary Marxism is The Co"espondence of Marx and Engels ...... $2.75 sociocentric. As a Marxist, Schmalhausen A full selection. Of greatest historical importance. sees that the sane mind can only be realized Marx, Engels and Marxism, by V. I. Lenin ...... $[.25 in a sane society-the one is largely a func­ Essays on the foundamental problems of Marxism tion of the other. Essays in the History of Materialism, by George Plekhanov ...... $2.50 lndeed, the reactionary nature of indivi­ An application of historical materialism to philosophy dualism has rarely been $0 devastatingly Aspects of Dialectical Materialism, by H. Levy, Jolin Macmurray, etc ..... $1.75 exposed. Psychology, Schmalhausen notes, An examination of economics, literature, science, etc. h~s been traditionally introverted, internal­ ...... ized, its p.oint Qf concentration heine the THE HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION isolated individual. With such an approacb by LEON TROTSKY itls an easy matter to refer all sorts of Three Volumes delinqu~ncies, and psychopathologies to an Regular Ptice $10.00 Our Price $6.00 internal etiology (which, if hereditary, jus­ Limited supply at this price tiGes the sterilization of "non.. desirables", ...... stich as Jews and idiots-and political ea~­ Whither Russia' (Toward Socialism or Capitalism), by Leon Trotsky ... , $1.00 mies) ; the social order is exonerated. Even An evaluation of the course of the Russian revolution Freud, who was strong enough to break The DecUne of American CapitaUsm, by Lewis Corey ...... $4.00 through the straitjacketing brown decades, The first fundamental Marxist work on the anatomy of American capitalism is so caught in the rigors of bourgeois il- The Chart of Plenty, by Harold Loeb and Associates ...... $2.50 A study of America's productive capacity lie Schmalhausen admits the analogic.al na­ These are just a few of the books we carry in stock. We can supply you with ture of his re.aSOfting, but fails to justify books of all publishers. Make it a point to order all your books through the it: "Though we .are in the field of an.alogy, I · think it not unilluminating to viSilalize PIONEER PUBLISHERS the present social order, particldarly from 96 Fifth Avenue, N. Y. C. a psycbiauic p.oint of view, as a study in Write for new catalogue - Just off the I'ress psychopathology." (Pp. 230-1.) Pace 80 THE NEW INTERNATIONAL March 1935

all that I and others have been tryiu, to do in the nation, I want to make it platn that A Picture of the Socialist Party I stand ready to renounce my right to vote in the N .E.C. on this particular question, BELOW, WE publish a copy of two by transferring members who had already provided, of course, that .oneal, who is letters which were sent out to members of voted in their own branches, to other editor of the New Lea.de'l a purely faction­ the socialist party in New York just as branches in order to elect pro-administra­ al organ over which the party has no true our forms were being closed. They give tion delegates to the City Central Commit­ control, is similarly disqualified. Certain a revealing picture of the situation within tee? it is that socialists cannot advocate demo­ that party at the present time. The second "DO YOU KNOW that the City office cracy in the world, and then in their own letter in particular gives the reader a poli­ has refused to admit hundreds of nineteen­ affairs, practise methods worthy of the old tical portrait of the titular leader of the year old Yipsels to membership, despite the parties in .order to maintain power. party, under whose direction the party was instruction of the Detroit convention, and "I ask your support in order to save our guided to the land of revolutionary prin­ the N.E.C.? ciple where it would be the proletarian party. This, be it remembered, is an issue party in the United States. To aid in this "DO YOU KNOW that the City Execu­ Independent of, and infinitely more impor­ noble endeavor, all "unattached radicals", tive Committee has systematically rejected tant than any opinion you may have on the all the politically homeless, were urged, not many applicants for membership because Declaration of Principles, or the "nited only by him but also by several gullible their viewpoint on theoretical questions front. and not so naive persons, to join the party. differs from the position of the City office? "Fraternally yours, The results to date are far from inspiring. "DO YOU KNOW that several new [Signed] "Norman Thomas." Frightened by the furore of the Right branches have been immediately given dele­ wing's resistance to their first steps, the gates to the City Central Committee in "Militant" leaders have since been engaged order to increase the administration vote, in heaping apology and lamentation upon whereas the precedent established last year A Note to the Reader capitulation and retreat. Where yesterday in the case of the proposed Staten Island thp. "'rl1s~rip.rc; ~Dokp. hr:lve1v a.hout principleS, Branch (not a pro-administration branch) \VE ARE once more obliged to call the their slogan now is: Unity, unity above all was to put new branches on a six month attention of our readers to technical diffi­ and before everything else, unity at all probation period before granting a char­ culties, created by circumstances beyond costs. Meanwhile, with no strong motor, ter? our control, which made it impossible to no real captain, no firm rudder, the S. P. avoid omitting the regular February num­ ship is disintegrating in the storm. "COMRADES, show your belief in our ber of our review. Up to now, THE NEW socialist traditions, and your indignation at The first letter, inspired by the "Mili­ INTERNATIONAL has been printed in our this un-socialistic, un-democratic series of small establishment, without very elaborate tants", is signed by one of their leaders. acts. Sent along with it was the letter from Nor­ equipment, and crowded for space. The man Thomas. They follow: "Come, and bring all your comrades and increased requirements of our party made branch members to Stuyvesant Casino, 192 it imperative not only that we find larger "March I I, 1935. Second Ave., Friday, March IS, 8:00 P.M. quarters for our printing plant but also that we add to the equipment in order that our "TO ALL COMRADES-Left, Right "Listen to reports on the activities, and publications and our general literature or Center: join in the discussion. Admission by party might be produced more efficiently and in 'fDO YOU WANT a healthy functioning membership card only. larger quantities. By a considerable strain Socialist party in New York, which will "Fraternally, upon slender resources, additional equip­ take a vigorous part in all labor and social­ [Signed] "Max Delson." ment and a new headquarters were obtained ist activities? • • • towards the end of last month. "DO YOU KNOW that nine branches ((STATEMENT BY NORMAN THOMAS Unfortunately and unavoidably, in the bave been illegally dissolved without a "TO THE MEMBERSHIP OF NEW process of moving and setting tip the new bearing? machinery, a disruption of production regu­ YORK CITY: uDO YOU KNOW that the action was larity was created. The result was that our weekly official organ, taken on the recommendation of an inves­ "The time has come when, irrespective New Militant l tigating committee that had never investi­ of our belief about any of the questions was compelled to skip one issue and to come pted, but had its only meeting for ten which have agitated our party, those of us out late with the next one. THE NEW minutes prior to the Executive Committee in N ew York, who are loyal to an Ameri­ INTERNATIONAL suffered likewise, and the session? can Socialist party must save it from' sui­ February issue was regretfully omitted cide by violent split, or death by creeping from schedule. It goes. without saying that "DO YOU KNOW that the City office paralysis. subscribers will be credited with an addi­ bas deliberately colonized several branches "As long as there was hope that by truly tional number. democratic procedure New York City could However that may be, we were anxious settle its own affairs, I have been inactive HAVE YOU HEARD? to make up for the omission in the best in most controversies. I have made my way at our command. We therefore de­ John Hart, Arthur Graham, A. general opinion known, but I have taken cided, in face of the tremendous effort re­ Weaver, J. Becker all of New York little part in the battles in the Executive quired both by the editorial staff and the City and Chris Johnson of Los An­ and Central Committees. Now I ask you business department, to publish the March geles, have each pledged One Dollar to read this enclosed statement. It shows issue with a fifty percent increase in size, monthly for a period of one year that in a frantic desire to keep a majority but without an increase either in the whole., toward the support of THE NEW IN­ in the Central Committee at all costs, a sale or retail price. We have been told TERNATIONAL. Florence Becker of faction in the party has flouted all consti­ that a 32-page magazine like the one we Long Island pledged Five Dollars tutional and democratic procedure. To publish, is too good to be true at fifteen monthly. submit to this is to complete the destruction cents a copy. We do not know exactly WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO of any idealistic and vigorous socialism in what will be said when this issue appears N ew York. I believe that there is a chance with 4B pages. But we do hope that it will ABOUT IT? that a carefully selected committee, ap­ We need forty more dollar pledges serve to diminish the irritation caused by pointed by the N.E.C., might perhaps bring the delay and that we shall be repaid in to secure regular publication of the about an amicable reorganization in New magazine. Won't you send yours the long run for the additional expense we York, or at any rate, guarantee rights of ha ve incurred by an even warmer support today? For our part, we will give democracy to New York socialists. Let us you a free subscription for one year. from our readers than heretofore. Our unite to demand action from the governing new technical equipment will henceforward Don't delay. Send your pledge at body of our party before it is too late. facilitate the timely appearance of each once and we promise you a bigger "In thus taking the lead in New York to issue of our review. We ask for a little -lind bette, try to remedy a situation which makes our forbearallce from our readers--and their NEW INTERNATIONAL socialist struggles impossible, and nullifies aid. IWas this a violation of inner party demo­ cracy? "Answer: The Political Bureau of the The Press party thought that the Unemployment and Social Insurance Congress presented a At Home·. golden opportunity of presenting the ques­ COMRADE LITVINOV vs. COMRADE tion to 2,500 delegates from all over the WE WERE not aware of the numerous PFORDT country. It was a springboard from which friends THE NEW INTERNATIONAL has until THE official Com intern paper, Rund­ to launch the idea of a class struggle labor the January issue came out with the schau (Basel, January 24, 1935), prints party as opposed to a third capitalist pro­ Monthly Pledge Fund. To assure contin­ the texts of two declarations made to the gressive party or a reformist party differ­ uous publication and to help us build the Council of the League of Nations on the ing from the progressive one only in dema· gogy. circulation to 6,000 we asked 'our friends to same day, January 17, 1935, in connection pledge themsetves to THE NEW INTERNA­ with the Saar referendum vote. "The enthusiasm with which the partv TION AL a certain sum each month for the The first, sent in the name of his party membership and the non-party masseshaye period of one year, from one dollar to by comrade Fritz Pfordt, member from the received the announcement of the labor anything up. party is proof of the correctness of the Saar of the Central Committee of the Com­ C. Johnson of Los Angeles answers the munist party of Germany (Section of the decision of the Political Bureau. It dem­ onstrated once .again that the communists appeal and writes "Donating to the N. I. I Communist International), asks the League \ exercize political initiative in all fields. the sum of $I.OO which I pledge myself to Council to invalidate the Saar vote: send regularly each month. Enclosed is "The Communist party of the Saar dis­ "There was nO' violation of party demo­ my contribution to your fund for maintain­ trict has commissioned me to enter a pro­ cracy. The widest discussion is being car­ ing it and make it grow." Four of our test before the Council of the League of ried on within the party on all phases of friends in N ew York City send in a dollar Nations and the entire world against the the question. Action and discussion is be­ each and each pledges $I.OO a month. validity of the vote cast on January 13, as ing carried on simultaneously. The Central it was neither a free nor an uninfluenced Committee at its last plenum made deci­ R. R~ K. of N ew York City sends in and honest vote. . . . We declare before the sions concerning the policies of the party $15.00, one year's pledge in advance. Supreme Council of the League of Nations with respect to the labor party movement. F. Becker of Long Island tells us that and the world: A free, secret and uninflu­ This decision is being carried out through­ she is "temporarily hard up. . . . I did not enced vote can never look like this! This out the country. At the same time party forget my J anu<\ry pledge but some of my terror-vote can never be declared valid ac­ discussions are going on which can modify other creditors were much more impres­ cording to the principles which should pre­ or elaborate this decision as can be done sive .... I will be able to return to the vail for this vote, according to the princi­ with all other decisions of the Central Com­ fray on March I with a monthly ten bucks." ples of the right of the Saar people to a free mittee. We feel sure that there are more friends referendum. This vote is no genuine ex­ "The Political Bureau could act because who have not yet sent in their pledges. (A pression of will." it was putting forward a basic principle of subscription for one year goes to each one The second declaration on the Saar is the party. This decision like all other deci­ year pledge.) contained in a speech made to the Council sions is based on the mutual confidence of Branches are still sending in increases by comrade Maxim Litvinov, member of the membership and the leadership, and its in bundles but Allentown, Pa. beats them the Central Committee of the Communist correctness is established by the collective all. They started in January with a bundle party of the Soviet Union (Section of the experiences of the entire party. It should of 10. As soon as their bundle reached Communist International) : be emphasized that the communist party, at th~m th~y wrote "Send us an additional

I;, ",With great satisfaction, we can today those times when immediate decisions are 25 .... Make our February bundle 50 cop­ record the success of the application of the necessary, acts and discusses at the same ies." That, in our opinion, is being on the right of the self-determination of the time." job. peoples, which represents one of the basic A comrade from an underground branch principles of the international policy of my in the south starts off with five copies, say­ government. The application of this prin­ TOWARDS THE FOURTH ing: "We realize the importance of raising ciple must have the aim of determining the INTERNATIONAL the circulation to 6,000 within six months. r nationality of the majority of the popula­ TO THE Workers party of the United Rest assured that we shall do our part." tion of a given territory. History has de­ States, the Workers party of Canada, the The Oakland branch, too, is on the job. cided that the test of this principle should Bolshevik-Leninist party of Cuba, the They write: "Put the N. I. on the news­ ~e made on the nationality of the Saar (Left) Communist party of Chile, the stand in the student's building at the Uni­ population. This test, which took place on (when this appears) united revolutionary versity of Calif. today, also on the biggest the 13th of of this month, led to results socialist party of Holland, the Workers news stand in Berkeley. It won't be long which put an end to all doubts, if any ex­ party of Australia, and other parties and now until we will be increasing our bundle isted, about the nationality of the Saar groups rallied under the banner of the order." province. It cannot be expected from the Fourth International, comes a new adher­ A friend in Madison, Wis., tells us: "I League of Nations that, after the results ent, Partido Obrero (Marxista Leninista) accidentally came across one of your past of this test, it should broach the question of Panama. Its official organ, Organizacion issues and it was a revelation. I had no of why the Saar people voted as it did. If, (] anuary 31, 1935), contains the manifesto such idea of the calibre of your literature as many believe, the voters took into parti­ of the Organizing Central Committee of although I still remain a loyal supporter cular consideration circumstances which the party, "to the workers and the poor and of the official c.P." spoke against their national aspirations, middle class peasants, and to the intellec­ Our circle of friends is rapidly growing. then the fact that these considera­ tuals, students and revolutionary elements Subscriptions, pledges, bundle orders, in­ tions were finally eliminated can only rein­ of the middle classes", which announces creases in bundles-each is another dash of force the significance of the vote from the the launching of the party and sets out its cement to the strengthening of the founda­ purely national standpoint. The great ma­ platform. tion of a skyscraping NEW INTERNATIONAL. THE MANAGER jority of the Saar people has told us that Somewhat less unequivocally but moving it wishes to remain German and that it along the same line of development is the wishes to share the destiny of its country­ France, Belgium, Switzerland, Czechoslo­ recent appeal issued by the socialist youth vakia, England and Austria, to begin the men in every respect. We must confine organization of Spain to the youth organ­ ourselves to respecting such a decision and reconstruction of the youth movement on izations of the communist party, the Mau­ the clear foundation of revolutionary to congratulating the German people upon rin group, the International Cpmmunists the return of its sons in the Saar." Marxism. The international leadership re­ (Trotskyists) and the proletarian youth of quired for the achievement of victory does Spain in general. From the appeal, as re­ not yet exist. The Second and Third In­ DECISION, ACTION, DISCUSSION printed in the International Bulletin of the ternationals have lost their position of WE rescue from undeserved oblivion the Youth (Stockholm, February 1935), issued leadership. After Hitler's triumph a new following pearl plucked from an article on by the International Bureau of Revolution­ movement has come fo life. We believe the labor party policy of the American c.P. ary Youth Organizations, we take the fol­ that it is urgently necessary to lead this in the Daily Worker (February 16, 1935): lowing: movement to its' destination. Let us return "Question: Why was the question of the "The Socialist Youth has finally broken to Marx and Lenin. Let us unite the pro­ labor party raised by comrade Browder be­ with social democratic reformism and it letarian youth into an International which fore there was any discussion in the party? desires, together with the socialist youth of has broken with the mistakes of the past." _ - __~- _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_....:._-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-;,...... ,...:.--' _"- _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_.....:_~-_- _-_-_"--_..... _-_-_-_- _-:-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_""'7_- _-_-_-_-_-~ ~. . Ammunition Needed

to insure regular appearance of the magazine.

This reproduction is of an early Diego Rivera dr-awing.

The original measures 15 by 22 inches and will be sent to

you already framed in sir:p.ple unvarnished wood. It was

donated to us QY a ~~p1rade, in response to an appeal for

funds. The friend writes:

(( I am sending you an early Diego Rivera drawing

which was given to me and which I prize very highly. I

should like to contribute $200 to the magazine, as I believe

it to be the best theoretical organ in the United States,

but I am not in a position to do it at this time. I trust.you

can realize a substantial sum on the drawing. and so enable

the magazine. to expand."

As an "early Rivera", this drawing is extremely valu-

able to art collectors, even commercially speaking. A PEASANT-SOLDIER By Diego Rivera

The original of the peasant-soldier drawing together with one year's subscription to the free New International to the highest bidder. Make your bid in the light of a contribution to the magazine to make possible its regular and uninterrupted publication. The drawing will be sent to you as a token of thanks for your cooperation. ~"

NEW INTERNATIONAL 2 West 15th Street :~!if; ! ' SIGN THIS, !J. New York City

BLANK AND I can contribute $ .. " ...... ". Please inform me whether you can send me the Rivera drawing and I will RETU:RN send check. Name .... , ...... AT ONCE Address ...... City ...... State ...... ; ... .

~------~~----~~------~nfJi

. J~. ~ ..