Fully Threatened by the Moscow Trials and the Lynch C.I
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APPEAL INSTITUTE ISSUE An Organ of Revolutionary Socialism Published Monthly by Socialist Appeal, Room 719—35 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, 111. Subscription: One dollar for 24 issues Vol. Ill—No. 3 MARCH, 1937 Price 5 Cents CONTENTS Editorial: The Crisis in the Party 29 Appeal Institute Resolutions Internal Situation 40 Albert Goldman: The Appeal Institute 36 Trade Union 40 Ernest Erber: Statement 39 Labor Party 42 The Crisis in the Party fYURING the past month it has become clear to every then so sharply posed, were yet insufficient to solve the ** alert party member that our party is in the midst of fundamental problem. For this reason, the subsequent a serious crisis. It would be a mistake, however, to sharpening of new conflicts, the breaking out of a new imagine that the existence of more or less organized crisis, could not have been avoided, no matter what efforts "factions" or "groups" is the mark of the crisis. On the were made at postponement. The calling of the Special contrary, groups and factions are entirely normal and Convention precipitated the new crisis at the new stage healthy in the life of an active and democratic political of the development of the party as a whole. This result organization. It is through such groups, functioning with- necessarily followed from the calling of the Special Con- in the disc:plined framework of the party as a whole that vention precisely because the fundamental probleiii is not differing ideas and methods are presented for discussion yet solved. And until it is solved, in one of the only and decision to the party membership. Though internal two possible ways, new crises, in varying degrees of in- groups may and should disappear temporarily from time tensity, will periodically arise. to time, on the rare occasions when there is no important What, then, is the fundamental problem? The APPEAL divergence on political issues among the membership — has repeatedly stated it; it is neither complex nor myster- indeed, a group which is not built on a specific political ious. It is simply this: will the party continue forward platform is of necessity an unprincipled organizational on the road through which it will become the revolu- clique—nevertheless the long continued absence of groups tionary party of the American working class? or will it is a sure proof not of united vigor, but of sterility and slip back into reformism and disintegration? Since 1933 political death. This is precisely the meaning of the this has been the basic problem underlying every other complete absence of internal groupings in the parties of issue in the party, and every organizational struggle; and the Communist International. They are absent in the it will continue to dominate the party until it is finally C.I. because critical thought is prohibited. Differences of settled, one way or the other. For it is not yet settled. opinion are settled not by democratic discussion, but Even the split with the main forces of the Old Guard did by expulsion—or, in the Soviet Union itself, by the still not settle it, as the present situation in the party makes more direct methods of the G.P.U. sufficiently obvious. The existence of groups in our party, then, is not what Since Cleveland the problem has, in some measure at indicates the crisis. What shows that there is a crisis is, least, been fitted into a new setting. This is due to the rather, the fact that certain groups and individuals in the extraordinary rapidity of social and political changes, party call for the splitting of the party, call for the ex- both nationally and internationally. To mention but a pulsion, not merely for the political defeat, of the group few of the more important: The new imperialist war or groups to which they are opposed. It is essential has moved appreciably nearer, and throughout the world that the party membership understand the exact political all political policies are dominated by preparations for the nature of the crisis, so that it may act on the basis of such war. The social conflict in Spain reached the climax of understanding, and not through either ignorance or open civil war. The General Strike in France showed prejudice. that the French proletariat is on the eve of decisive The present crisis, as the APPEAL has already made struggles. The Soviet bureaucracy, seeing the approach clear, is not something altogether new and unexpected. of the war, finds it necessary to advance its new policv It is, in reality, simply one stage further in the process with multiplied sneed and ruthlessness. as shown above aH of development which began nearly four years ago, and by the Moscow Trials. In this country the C.I.O. move- which has twice before reached the level of crisis: once ment and the wave of strikes show in their own way the in connection with the "Declaration of Principles"; again deep repercussions of the growing international clash of at the Cleveland Convention. The actions taken at Cleve- forces. All of these great events, directly or indirectly, land, the split with the main forces of the Old Guard, in consciously or unconsciously, leave their impress on our New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, though rep- party, and help to determine the present program and resenting a progressive answer to the immediate issue relationships of groups and individuals. 30 SOCIALIST APPEAL The Attack of the Communist Party For a considerable time following the adoption of the (Browder boasted about it in his post-election report); new People's Front orientation by the Communist Interna- every vote they took away from us was a victory for tional, the chief object of the Communist party in this progress. country with reference to the Socialist party was to It has been the same with every issue which has arisen obliterate the memories of the "Third Period" and of the during the months since Cleveland. When we point out Madison Square Garden episode. The violent abuse of that the issue in Spain is socialism vs. capitalism, that the Third Period changed to kindliness. Social-fascists the workers of Spain cannot win in the end by confining became the best of comrades. The united front and then their struggle to the preservation of capitalist edmocracy, the People's Front became the order of the day. But an then we are, say the Stalinists, allies of Franco. When unfortunate conflict arose, and Browder was placed in Norman Thomas and Devere Allen join a Committee to the most perplexing dilemma faced by any of the little defend the right of asylum and of a fair hearing, so fate- leaders of the Third International. The new line of the fully threatened by the Moscow Trials and the lynch C.I. with respect to the parties of the Second International campaign against Trotsky, they have become tools of was predicated on the assumption that these parties were assassins. When the CALL calls for no support of the reformist, social-democratic, in policy; and indeed flowed U.S. government in any war, Browder, in his Madison from the fact that the C.I. itself had taken over a reform- Square Garden speech, carefully suggests that it is pre- ist policy. But in this country the Stalinists discovered paring to sell out the United States to Japan. When our that the Socialist party was rapidly leaving reformism comrades call for a class-struggle policy in the Workers' and social-democracy behind; so determinedly, in fact, Alliance and an end with behind-the-back deals with that in the Spring of 1936 it split with the spearhead of supervisors and purely parliamentary slogans, they have reformism and recruited into its own ranks the revolu- become disrupters of the unity of the unemployed. When tionists from the former Workers' party. Here was a our party demands as an international perspective a formidable obstacle indeed: The plan of the C.l'. to enlist break with the class collaborationism of the People's the masses of the democratic countries for the coming war Front and an advance along the road of revolutionary dictated joining with the reformist parties of the Second struggle for socialism, we have gone over into the fascist International in anti-revolutionary Popular Fronts which camp and have joined the enemies of the Soviet Union. would simultaneously make ready a mass recruiting base And in recent weeks, in California, Newark, New York for the war and wipe out any independent revolutionary City, Boston, our comrades distributing leaflets and litera- political organization. But the Socialist party of the ture, are set upon physically by Stalinist hoodlums. U. S., though still formally a member of the Second In- Stalinist Cure for S. P. ternational, was proving a recalcitrant mistress. Instead But the efforts of the Stalinists are not by any means of leaping happily into the arms of her Peoples Front confined to mere pedagogy. They propose to do more lover, she was turning in the opposite direction, toward than to teach us little lessons in Marxism-Stalinism. direct struggle against capitalism—even, unfortunately Browder is a practical man as well as the teacher of the for Browder, against democratic capitalism— and against American proletariat. He intervenes more directly and the approaching war. She carried through her divorce with more specific proposals. During recent months action against Waldman, and then—horror of horrors— especially the mimeograph machine and printing presses instead of knocking at Browder's door on 13th Street, of the Stalinists have devoted a flattering amount of at- she was discovered consorting with "the vanguard of the tention to material specifically designed for Socialist bourgeoisie, the counter-revolutionary assassins," in short, party members.