LEON TROTSKY AN EDITORIAL Trotsky During WorM Wllr I 8y Alfred Rosmer Tile Assllssin lint! His Crime 8y Victor Serge Venlitt DR tile Moscow Trillls 8y Albert Gates F,. Portrllits 01 Stlllinism- V .,8y Max SlIaclltman KOREA AND U. S. POLICY 35; 8y J •. M. Fenwlci CORRESPONDENCE BOOK REVIEWS September-October 1950 T THE NEW INTERNATIONAL MEMO I An Organ of Revolutionary Marx;sM THE NEW INTERNATIONAL Vol. XVI. No.5 Whole No. 144 An Organ of Revo'u,f1onary MarxIsm OUR READERS MAY BE INTERESTED in the role THE NEW INTERNATIONAL SEPTEMBER·OCTOBER 1950 plays abroad. It is important to bear in mind the fact that throughout the world Vol. XVI. No.5 SEPTEMBER·OCTOBER 1950 Whole No. 144 the weakness of socialist movements TABLE OF CONTENTS which are free from ideological and po­ Editorial: litical dependence on either Stalinism AN EDITORIAL or American capitalism is reflected in LEON TROTSKY, 1879-1940 ................ 259 the virtual absence of any serious theo­ retical periodicals. Articles: From Germany a friend writes: "That TROTSKY IN PARIS DURING WORLD Leon Trotsky .. 1879-1940 I, as a socialist mainly interested in WAR I ............................................ 263 theory, appreciate THE NEW INTERNA­ By Alfred R08mer The same misfortune that befell Marx after his death has befallen TIONAL very much, is clear. Talking VERDICT ON THE Moscow TRIALS...... 278 Trotsky. Superficial critics and uncritical followers, each in their own way, some time ago of an article published By Albert Gates in your magazine, I contacted a member either hardened Marx into bloodless stone or created a new Marx in the image of the former 'Left Opposition.' He KOREA AND U. S. FOREIGN POLICy.... 287 of their misunderstandings and prejudices. Isolated polemical emphases were By James M. Fenwick knew the journal already and asked me converted into the very essence of Marx's teachings; passing judgments FOUR PORTRAITS OF STALINISM-V 293 to tell you his address with his request, into eternal truths; episodic or auxiliary commentaries into infallible uni. to send him the NI. ..." By Max Skacktman versal doctrine. As a result of these gross transformations, the real Marx Another friend writes: "With great THE ASSASSIN AND HIS CRIME ........ 309 interest I read of the debate between By Victor Serge became all but unrecognizable, and so did his real contributions to modern Shachtman and Browder in Labor Ac­ thought and action. For the real Marx to be d~graded to the position of deity tion. It would be very valuable to have Booles in Review: was already monstrous enough. It was worse when only a fragment of Marx the factual material presented by Shacht­ MURDER IN MEXICO .............................. 315 was set up as the godhead of socialist thought. But Marx was not the only man in print. It is ,a general lack of our Reviewed by J.' M. F. propaganda on the Russian question that one who sowed dragon's teeth and reaped fleas. Trotsky has suffered from the A COMMUNIST PARTY IN ACTION ...... 317 same fate, even if his fleas sound more like parrots. the most important data on wages, bu­ Reviewed by Henry Judd reaucratic privileges, prices, etc., are BEYOND DFEEAT .................................. 319 A recent critic, who has bought fame with his skill at mixing defamation scattered over some dozens of books and forgery, sees in Trotsky nothing but a "pathetic" but envious denouncer written in several languages ...." Reviewed by R. Fahan of the Stalinist bureaucracy. It is like seeing in all of Marx's work nothing but Weare glad that the last issue of the Correspondence .................... ................. 313 NI was able to furnish our friend with his attacks upon Bakunin. A recent disciple, who should not be belabored some ,of this material, and we hope to for simplemindedness when it is so self-evident, saw the "heart of Trotskyism" .1 add to it in the future. Published bi-monthly by the New Inter­ II national Publishing Co. at 114 West 14th in the theory of the defense of the Soviet Union. It is like seeing the heart of The revolutionary socialists in Europe Street, New York 11, N. Y. Re-entered as Marxism in Marx's "defense of the First International." I and Asia lack not only good periodical second-class matter March 8, 1950, at the material; especially in the lands once post office at New York, N. Y., under the TROTSKY'S GREATEST, UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION was made long before there Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates: under Hitlerr's control, all Marxist works $2.00 per year; bundles, 25c each for five was a Stalinist bureaucracy to denounce or a Soviet Union to defend. It was are in short supply, and particularly the copies and up. Foreign, $2.50 per year; his theory of the permanent revolution. In presenting it, he drew heavily works of Leon Trotsky and his collabo­ bundles, 30c each for five and up. rators. Address' all editorial and business com­ upon Marx's writings on the permanent revolution. But just as Marx drew munications either to The New Interna­ heavily upon German philosophy, British political economy and French Weare informed that the works of tional, 114 West 14th Street, New York 11, Marx, Engels and Lenin are now avail­ N. Y., or to The New International, 4 revolutions only to synthesize them into a concatenation of ideas uniquely able in German, as they have been re­ Court Square, "Long Island City 1, N. Y. his own, so Trotsky developed, applied and expanded the theory of the Telephone: IRonsides 6-5117. published in the Russian zone. But all permanent revolution in a way that assured its designation as the specific the independent socialists still are in great need of Trotsky's contributions to theory of Trotskyism. This theory, as he elaborated it throughout a lifetime socialist analysis and theory. MAX SHACHTMAN, Editor devoted to its realization in the class struggle itself, did not require a depar­ EMANUEL GARRETT, Managing Editor Any Marxist books sent THE NEW IN­ ture from Marxism and its tradition. On the contrary, Trotsky was able to I TERNATIONAL in any language will be Editorial Board demonstrate the viability of Marxism precisely by the way it stimulated those I! promptly sent to Germany. Could you ! JAMES M. FENWICK ALBERT GATES of his thoughts-and actionsl-with which he so richly broadened and deep­ help us in the ideological rearming of ened it as no other, except Lenin, had done in almost the whole of the past the German socialists? BEN HALL HENRY JUDD hundred years. L. G. SMITH; Bus. Mg'r. L. G. SMITH, Busines8 Manager The full significance of Trotsky's theory has escaped all its vulgarizers, both the friendly and the hostile. It is not simply the idea that the proletariat democratic revolution. That role falls upon the shoulders of the proletariat must continue its revolutionary struggle until it is triumpant all over the of these countries, even though it is still small in numbers and young in world and that short of this triumph it cannot achieve freedom. There is capitalistic-years, upon the proletariat leading the great peasant masses. But much more to it, and most of it lies ahead of this idea. The theory is based what if there is no proletariat in these countries, or only a tin.}', still unschooled upon relating the basic social problems of all countries, no matter what form proletariat, which is not yet ready or capable of carrying out the democratic they take, regardless of how advanced or retarded the country in which they revolution? In such a case, replied Trotsky, the country itself is not yet ready present themselv~s, to the twentieth-century bourgoisie and the twentieth­ for the democratic revolution-for if the proletariat does not exist to carry century proletariat. Whether the problem in the one country is that of striking it out. no other social force exists that will perform the task. It should hardly the bonds with which capitalism fetters social progress, or in another country be necessary to add that just as Trotsky distinguished between the bourgeois­ that of striking the" bonds which feudalism or semi-slavery fetters progress, is democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, he likewise distinguished not a matter of irrelevance to Trotsky's theory-far from it-but it is reduced between the solutions which a genuine bourgeois-democratic revolution would to secondary importance. provide and the half-solutions, or better yet, the quarter-solutions provided Th~ prima~, indeed the decisive, importance is attached to the question by the caricatures recently achieved by the native bourgeoisie of some of the of the lIVIng socIal forces, the classes, and not of the social forms. To put it colonial lands of Asia. otherwise, it is precisely because different social forms-capitalism, feudalism, But the proletariat of these countries, because it must carry out the and to a certain extent even slavery-are involved in the combination that bourgeois revolution against the bourgeoisie. will find, exactly as it did in the makes u~ the mod~T.n world, and because of the specific way in which they Russia of 1917, that the clash of the classes drives it, in defense of the elemen­ a:e combIned and Interrelated, that the main emphasis is shifted to the ques­ tary achievements of this revolution itself, to deprive the bourgeoisie of its tIo.n of the classes. The matter of emphasis, at first blush a subtlety, is deep­ class power and privilege and reorganize society on a socialist basis. A socialist gOIng and farreaching in political importance. basis is one thing, and it can be laid in one country.