AMERICA AND THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL EARL BROWDER THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL: A FORCE FOR WORLD DEMOCRACY ~ ... -,.A~ · X BITTELJ\IA . (R eview of the M onth) LENIN AND INTERNATIONAL LABOR UNITY D. Z. M NUlL KY TWENTY CENTS C. I. TWENTIETH _-\K N I VER SA R Y I SUE c5\. nnouncing A BOOK OF WORLD IMPORTANCE! Ready in March History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Prepared under the supervision of the Central Committee, C.P.S.U. "The study of the heroic history of the Bolshevik Party arms us with the knowledge of the law.s of social de­ velopment and political struggle, with the knowledge of the driving forces of the revolution. "The study of the history of the C.P.S.U. strengthens our confidence in the final victory of the great cause of the Party of Lenin and Stalin, the victory of Communism throughout the entire world." From Introduction to History of the C.P.S.U. "WITH THIS BOOK WE WILL RAISE UP A WHOLE GENERATION SCHOOLED IN THE BEST THOUGHT PRODUCED BY HUMANITY." Earl Browder, Theory as a Guide to Action 384 Pages. Cloth $1.00 • WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS P. 0. Box 148, Station D New York City VOL. XVIII, No.1 MARCH, 1939 'Jhe COMMUNIST A MAGAZINE OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MARXISM-LENINISM PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE ·u.s.A. EDITORS: EARL BROWDER, ALEX BITTELMAN, Y. ]. JEROME CONTENTS Review of the Month. A. B. 195 America and the Communist International EARL BROWDER 209 Lenin and the International Labor Move- ment D. Z. MANUILSKY. ~~~6 The Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba . WILLIAM Z. FOSTER 225 The Day of International Women's Solidarity . N. K. KRUPSKAYA 232 Canada-The Key to Anti-Fascist Unity of the English-Speaking Peoples . TIM BUCK 237 Deterioration of Labor Conditions During the Last Decade GEOGRE WALLACE 245 The Mexican Question in the Southwest EMMA TENAYUCA and HOMER BROOKS • 257 Class Forces in California Agriculture. HARRISON GEORGE Class Conflicts in the South, 185o-x86o HERBERT BIEL From the World Communist Press. Book Reviews HARRY ROBINSON. Entered as second class matter November 2, I927, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March J, z879. Send checks, money orders and correspondence to THE COMMUNIST, P. 0. Box I48, Sta. D (5o E. I]th St.), New York. Subscription rates: $2.00 a year; II .oo for six months; foreign and Canada $2.50 a year. Single copies 20 cents. J'I!.INTED IN U.S.A. .....101 The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite! -Marx and Engels, 'The Communist Manifesto' The Communist International 1919--1939 REVIEW OF THE MONTH Twentieth Anniversary of the Communist International. A Marxist-Leninist International. Proletarian Dictatorship in Theory and Practice. Lenin's and Stalin's Teachings. Democracy and Dictatorship. What Is a Fascist Dic­ tatorship'! Communism and Fascism. The Anti-Fascist People's Front and the Higher Type of Socialist Democracy. What Is the Economic Outlook'! Reactionary Economy Drive Is a Disturbing Factor. What About the Growing National Debt'! Borrowing and Taxing. Contradictions Between Public Debt and Private Economy. Immediate and Long­ Range Solutions. Marx and Hamilton on Public Debts. Historical References and Comparisons. The Spanish War Is Extending. Compel Withdrawal of Hitler's and Mussolini's Invaders. Presi­ dent Roosevelt's Anti-Fascist Orientation and the Reactionary Maneuvers. Labor's Task and Duty. WENTY years ago this month­ revolutionary upsurge began in West· T March, 1919-representatives of em Europe. The new republican re­ Communist Parties of the most im­ gime in Germany, and the existence portant countries in the world assem­ there of Soviets of workers' and sol­ bled in Moscow, where they held their diers' deputies were having a revolu. first world congress and established tionizing influence over the rest of the (Third) Communist Interna­ Europe. It is true that the German tional. Thus had been formed an in­ revolution was a bourgeois and not a ternational revolutionary working socialist one and that the German class organization of a new type, a Soviets, because they were dominated Marxist-Leninist International. by Social-Democrats, soon became Lenin led in the work of the Con­ subordinated to the bourgeois parlia­ gress. In his report on bourgeois de­ ment. And in this lay the weakness mocracy and the proletarian dictator­ of that revolution. Yet it was a revolu­ ship. Lenin demonstrated the tion, which overthrew the regime of significance of Soviet power, the new William the Second, liberated the en­ type of govemmeJ..lt, as the genuine ergies of the masses, thus helping to democracy for the toiling people. The stimulate a revolutionary rise in the congress adopted an appeal to the other European countries. world proletariat, calling for decisive A widespread revolutionary move­ struggle for the proletarian dictator. ment was developing in Austria. In ship, for the victory of the Soviets in Hungary a Soviet republic was estab­ all countries. lished. And in many countries, Com­ While the young Soviet country munist Parties were coming into the was at that time preparing to re­ political arena on the basis of this sist foreign intervention, a widespread revolutionary wave. 195 196 THE COMMUNIST It was this sort of world situation deceived by the Kautskys, Bauers and in which the conditions matured for MacDonalds, is there any doubt that the unification of the various Com­ socialism would today be the prevail­ munist Parties in the Communist In­ ing system in most countries? No doubt ternational. Leninism became the at all. Had this happened, there guiding theory and practice of this would be no fascist dictatorships in new type of world labor organization. Germany and Italy, no second impe­ Learning from the model Communist rialist war, no economic crises, none Party, the Party of the Soviet Union, of the miseries and pain resulting to all the other parties affiliated in the the masses from dying capitalism. Communist International made the One does not have to rely upon Lenin-Stalin theory of the proletarian theory alone to show that this is true. dictatorship the basis and essence of Just take the Soviet Union, in which their ·struggles. the masses started out to build so­ The Left wing of the Socialist Party cialism, inheriting a relatively back­ of America, organized in 1918 under ward economy, largely agricultural, the leadership of Charles E. Ruthen­ ruined by years of imperialist war berg, which later founded the Com­ and foreign intervention. And see munist Party of the United States, what ·this country is proving as it pre­ made its main fight in the old Social­ pares for the Eighteenth Congress of ist Party and among the class-con­ its Communist Party which opens on scious workers generally on this fun­ March 10 in Moscow. It proves that damental issue: the acceptance of the Soviet power works. It abolished capi­ Lenin-Stalin theory of the dictator­ talism and has built in the main a ship of the proletariat. socialist system. It eliminated all the On this occasion of the twentieth causes that give rise to a country's anniversary of the founding of the imperialist aggression and to fascism. Communist International, and in the Fascist agents cannot for long survive. face of the increasing world offensive It knows how to deal with aggressors, of fascism and reaction, it is absolute­ to maintain the freedom and indepen­ ly imperative deeply to reflect upon dence of the country and to fight for and to consider the following truth. peace. The right to a job, to leisure, In the years 1918-:zo, the countries of to education and to security is guar­ Europe were passing through a revo­ anteed by the Stalin Constitution to lutionary crisis. The socialist revolu­ every citizen and is realized in actual tion was growing. Life itself had fact. then placed on the order of the day From 1932 to 1937, average annual the overthrow of capitalism and the wages for workers and office em­ establishment of the dictatorship of ployees have been more than doubled. the proletariat. Today, this should be The wage fund, out of which the so­ evident to all. If in the situation then cial security needs of the workers are prevailing the workers of the most im­ met, has increased in the same years portant capitalist countries had fol­ two and a half times. The gross in­ lowed the path of the Soviet proleta­ come of collective farmers has in­ riat, instead of letting themselves be creased in the four years from 1933 REVIEW OF THE MONTH 197 to 1937-2.7 times while the money tradictions between worker, peasant incomes paid out to the collective and intellectual, differences inherited farmers · in accordance with · their from capitalism, are disappearing, A work increased four and a half times moral and political unity of the in these years. whole of Soviet society is becoming a The development of the Third reality. So much so that the Commu­ Five-Year Plan-1937-1942-calls for nist Party of the Soviet Union, in an increase of industrial output of preparation for its Eighteenth Con­ 88 per cent. Production of articles of gress, is proposing to establish one consumption is to be increased 70 and the same requirement for Party per cent. And agricultural produc­ membership to hold good for all ap­ tion is to be increased 53 per cent. plicants, modifying in this sense its The same plan calls for a more than present constitution which lays down 50 per cent increase in consumption different requirements for persons of by the people of the Soviet Union, different social positions.