Marxist Politics Or Unprincipled Combinationism?
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Prometheus Research Series 5 Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism? Internal Problems of the Workers Party by Max Shachtman Reprinted from Internal Bulletin No. 3, February 1936, of the Workers Party of the United States With Introduction and Appendices , ^3$ Prometheus Research Library September*^ Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism? Internal Problems of the Workers Party by Max Shachtman Reprinted from Internal Bulletin No. 3, February 1936, of the Workers Party of the United States With Introduction and Appendices Prometheus Research Library New York, New York September 2000 Prometheus graphic from a woodcut by Fritz Brosius ISBN 0-9633828-6-1 Prometheus Research Series is published by Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Table of Contents Editorial Note 3 Introduction by the Prometheus Research Library 4 Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism? Internal Problems of the Workers Party, by Max Shachtman 19 Introduction 19 Two Lines in the Fusion 20 The "French" Turn and Organic Unity 32 Blocs and Blocs: What Happened at the CLA Convention 36 The Workers Party Up To the June Plenum 42 The Origin of the Weber Group 57 A Final Note: The Muste Group 63 Conclusion 67 Appendix I Resolution on the Organizational Report of the National Committee, 30 November 1934 69 Appendix II Letter by Cannon to International Secretariat, 1 5 August 1935 72 Letter by Glotzer to International Secretariat, 20 November 1935 76 Appendix III National Committee of the Workers Party U.S., December 1934 80 Glossary 81 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/marxistpoliticsoOOshac Editorial Note The documents in this bulletin have in large part been edited for stylistic consistency, particularly in punctuation, capitalization and emphasis, and to read smoothly for the modern reader. In "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?" we have used square brackets [ ] for our editorial insertions. Where material has been inserted by Shachtman, we have left his parentheses and his attribution (—MS), occasionally adding the latter. We have reproduced the quotations and translations which appear in "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?" as presented in the origi- nal; they often differ from the texts published in the Pioneer, Pathfinder or Monad editions. We have corrected a few dates cited by Shachtman according to the dates provided in the latter editions. The given date should enable researchers to find many of the quoted articles and letters in those volumes. A glossary of individuals, organizations and acronyms possibly unfamiliar to the reader is provided starting on page 8 1 . Acronyms for various organizations have been written out in full when they first occur, both in the introduction and in the main document. In cases where an acronym is derived from a language other than English, the expansion in that language is given in the glossary. Prometheus Research Library Introduction This bulletin reprints Max Shachtman's article, WPUS, written at the time by one of the participants. It "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?", should be read in conjunction with Cannon's 1944 rem- originally published in February 1936 in the Internal iniscences, published as The History ofAmerican Trotsky- 1 * 2 Bulletin of the Workers Party of the United States. ism. We include here as Appendix I the "Resolution on The WPUS—formed in December 1934 through a the Organizational Report of the National Committee" fusion of the Trotskyist Communist League ofAmerica adopted by the CIA's third and last convention in (CLA) and a leftward-moving centrist organization led November 1934. 3 Although Shachtman wrote that by A. J. Muste called the American Workers Party he planned to append this resolution to his document, (AWP)—was the revolutionary Trotskyist organization it did not appear in the WPUS Internal Bulletin as prom- in the U.S. at the time. Shachtman's document, written ised. As Appendix II we reprint a report on the Workers when he was a close collaborator of pre-eminent Trots- Party written by Cannon in 1935 and addressed to the kyist leader James P. Cannon, is an excellent presenta- International Secretariat (I.S.) of the International tion of Leninist methods of internal party struggle, illu- Communist League (ICL), the Trotskyist international minated through the political disputes which had roiled organization, as well as an effort to refute this report 4 the CLA in its last year of existence and were then car- by Albert Glotzer. Both are referred to in Shachtman's ried over into the WPUS. document. Appendix III lists the National Committee It was through these factional batdes, which cen- (NC) of the WPUS, established by the December 1934 tered on the correct attitude and tactics toward reform- fusion conference. ist social-democratic parties internationally, that the "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combination- young members of the former AWP were forged into ism?" was written on the eve of the formal dissolution Trotskyist cadre. Within the WPUS, a Leninist core of the WPUS, which was a condition for its cadre to around Cannon and Shachtman was pitted against enter the American Socialist Party (SP). This entry tac- both an ultraleft sectarian current led by Hugo Oehler tic, which was first advocated in 1934 by Leon Trotsky and a rightist clique grouped around Martin Abern, for France, has become known as the "French turn." Its Jack Weber and Albert Glotzer. In the course of the implementation by the WPUS was made, possible only fight, Cannon and Shachtman won the WPUS major- by the sharp political struggle against Oehler, who ity. Oehler and his supporters were expelled in late opposed it in principle. The French turn proved more 1935 for repeated, flagrant violations of party disci- successful in the United States than elsewhere, and the pline. In this document, written after the expulsion of Trotskyists emerged from the SP in the summer of the Oehlerites, Shachtman aims most of his fire at the 1 937 with their membership doubled. They went on to poisonous personalism which had led the Weber- found the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) at a National Abern-Glotzer clique to obstruct the fight against Oeh- Convention which ended on 3 January 1938. The SWP ler. Shachtman's goal, as he notes in his introduction, remained the revolutionary Trotskyist organization in was to draw lessons from the recent internal struggle in the United States until its descent into reformism in order to train the members of the Workers Party, par- 1960-65. ticularly its youth: Cannon's Tradition, Not Shachtman's Through its bloodstream must run a powerful resistance to the poison of clique politics, of subjectivism, of personal While Max Shachtman was the author of "Marxist combinationism, of intrigue, of gossip.... It must learn Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?" it does not to think politically, to be guided exclusively by political represent the political positions or methodology attrib- considerations, to argue out problems with themselves and utable to the later political current that bears his name. with others on the basis of principles and to act always Shachtmanism is correctly characterized by Shachtman's from motives of principle. renegacy—his flight from Trotskyism in 1939-40, The significance of "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled when, under the influence of the petty-bourgeois anti- Combinationism?" transcends the confines of the partic- Communist hysteria which greeted the Hitler-Stalin ular controversies which occurred over 60 years ago. The pact, he abandoned the program of unconditional mili- document is not only of broad political interest, but it tary defense of the Soviet Union on the eve ofWorld War also provides one of the only detailed accounts of II. At that time, Shachtman allied himself with Martin the internal factional struggles in the later CLA and Abern and James Burnham, who figure prominently in "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?" *Footnotes appear following the Introduction, starting on Burnham, a philosophy professor at New York Univer- page 16. sity and leader of the former AWP, is referred to in the documents we publish by his party name, West. In the fascism and Stalinism. This revisionist Workers Party course of the factional struggles detailed here by Shacht- —not to be confused with the Trotskyist WPUS man, Burnham was won to revolutionary Trotskyism. of 1934-1936—existed from 1940 to 1949, when it But his time as a Marxist leader lasted only a few years. changed its name to the Independent Socialist League. In 1939-40, Burnham was the central ideological leader Under the intense pressure of U.S. imperialism's of the petty-bourgeois opposition which has since be- anti-Soviet Cold War beginning in 1948, Shachtman come associated with Shachtman's name. came to see Stalinism as a danger greater than "dem- Trotsky waged the last factional struggle of his life ocratic" imperialism—and to view it even as a against Shachtman, Burnham and Abern. Their argu- new, world-encompassing system. In 1958, Shacht- ment that the Hider-Stalin pact negated the program of man liquidated his organization into the rabidly anti- unconditional military defense of the USSR was a fun- communist American social democracy, the Socialist damental capitulation to bourgeois anti-Communism Party-Social Democratic Federation. He ended his days and represented a rejection of the Marxist methodology as an open supporter of U.S. imperialism and member which Trotsky applied in characterizing the Soviet of the Democratic Party, backing the 1961 Bay of Pigs Union as a degenerated workers state. Burnham had in invasion of Cuba and the vicious, losing imperialist war fact previously announced both his rejection of dialec- against the Vietnamese social revolution. tical materialism and his view that the Soviet state rep- Shachtman had taken the first step along the road of resented not a degenerated form of the dictatorship of reconciliation with U.S.