PAGES* PROM
PARTY* HlfTORy
BY ♦ JAY ♦ LOVESTONE
lO
CENTf
PAGES* FROM
PARTY* HISTORY
BY ♦ JAY * LOVE* TONE
£
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS
15 EAST 125TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY
CHAPTER I
THE RECENT PARTY DISCUSSION
After the recent long Party discussion, it is not only appropriate
but necessary to draw certain conclusions from the examination
of policies, to estimate our Party's tasks, to trace its development, to
examine the perspectives for its immediate future.
It is now nearly ten years that our Party is in existence. The writer
recalls the beginnings of and some of the experiences in the Social-
ist Propaganda League in the old Socialist Party. In this organiza-
tion, which was the first near-Bolshevik crystallization, there par-
ticipated a number of comrades some of whom are now holding
the highest posts in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in
the Russian Trade Unions and in the Soviet Government. Our
experiences in the organization of the 1917-1919 Socialist Party
left wing, the forerunner of our Party of today, in such cities as
Cleveland, led by Comrade Ruthenberg, as Boston, led by Comrade
Ballam, as New York, led by such comrades as Gitlow, Weinstonc,
Wolfe and Reed, are of great value to us at this moment not only
in aiding us to secure a better understanding of our immediate
problems and a correction of our errors, but also in helping us
arrive at the best ways and means of insuring an acceleration of the
Party's growth in influence and power.
Our trials and errors in the pre-communist Party days, our fierce
factional struggles in the early underground days of our Party,
have been harmful 'in certain respects but have also served con-
structively as a sort of sieve not only for the Party leadership but
also for the Party membership. Those of our Party leadership and
membership who have gone through these periods will vouch for
this. The same applies also to the more recent struggles in our
Party ranks.
LENINIST ATTITUDE ON PARTY MISTAKES
Some comrades might state that we have admitted too many mis-
takes, we have exposed our weaknesses too much 'in the open; or
that we have been too sharp with each other. First of all, we must
emphasize to such comrades that differences are in order in a Com-
munist Party, provided they do not degenerate into quarrels. Sec-
ondly, sharpness in formulation of principle is not a liability but an
4 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
asset. This has been the position of Comrade Lenin, emphasized
by him time and again.
More than that. Comrade Lenin has thus stated the correct atti-
tude towards the Party and its mistakes:
"The attitude of a political party towards its mistakes is one of the surest
and most important tests of its seriousness and of its ability to discharge its
duties towards its class and the laboring masses. To recognize a mistake
openly, to find out its causes, to analyze the situation which occasioned it, to
examine carefully the means of repairing it — this is the mark of a serious
party, that is what in the case of a party is called one's duty, educating the
class and so the masses. "( Left-wing Communism.)
Our Party accepts this yard-stick of Lenin.
And Comrade Lenin even went further when he said:
"They (the opponents of Marxism) are overjoyed at the sight of our
discussions. They will attempt to exploit for their own ends certain passages of
this book devoted to the mistakes and shortcomings of our Party. The Rus-
sian Marxists are already sufficiently steeled in battle not to let themselves be
troubled by these pin pricks, to continue their task of self-criticism and of
merciless exposure of their own defects, which will inevitably disappear as
the working-class movement is strengthened." (Lenin-One Step Forward, 1904)
Hence the Trotsky clique does what it pleases about our open ad-
mission of errors. Our discussion is primarily constructive. Let the
Volkszeitung, its German mouthpiece, sneer. Let its ally, the cor-
rupt, reactionary Jewish Daily Forward attempt to capitalize our
admission of errors and the apparent, momentary friction in our
ranks. The coming Party convention will mark a period of new
strength, of new activities and the beginning of greater influence
for our Party. The coming Party convention will be a milestone
in the life of our Party, which is completing its turning point from
a propagandist organization binding together chiefly foreign im-
migrant workers and having practically no influence among the
native workers, into a Party of political action guiding all political
and economic actions of decisive sections of the American prole-
tariat — the great mass of semi-skilled and unskilled workers.
FEATURES OF THE PRESENT DISCUSSION
There were six main features characterizing the recent Party
discussion. These were:
(1) The genuine, keen interest of the membership tis a whole.
Approximately seven thousand Party members participated in voting
in the units for convention delegates. This is a high proportion of
our good-standing membership. It is the highest proportion re-
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 5
corded — greater absolutely as well as relatively even than the pro-
portion of our membership which participated in the 1924-25 Party
discussion. This is a sign of the healthy development of our Party.
(2) The level of discussion -was the highest we have reached.
Fundamental problems have been raised and examined with a wel-
come earnestness. This is true despite serious shortcomings in various
sections of the Party, in certain districts.
(3) A strong, broad support for the Central Committee. At
least 80 per cent of those participating in the voting in the un'its
cast their support for the Central Committee of the Party. The
present Central Committee has a far greater basis of support than
any of its predecessors. In fact the present Central Committee has
amongst the broadest bases of support to be found for Central
Committees in the various sections of the Comintern. This is an
index of the growth of the stability of our Party. This phenomenon
is. fortunately not limited to any particular district or number of
districts, but is noticeable throughout the Party, in every district
of the Party.
(4) The backbone of the support of the Central Committee is
the most proletarian section of our Party. Here the proportion of the
membership supporting the C. E. C. is even greater than in the
country as a whole. The proletarian heart of our Party is to be
found in the industrial triangle of Pittsburgh, Cleveland and De-
troit. The unit votes here indicate the following:
For the C.E.C. For the Opposition Percentage
for C.E.C.
55 84%
71 84%
56 82%
In the anthracite sub-district, the coal miners voted unanimously
for the Central Committee. On the Iron Range the metal miners
voted 107 to 1 for the Central Committee. On the Copper Range
165 against for the Central Comimttee. In the Ohio coal fields
115 to for the Central Committee. In the soft coal fields of
western Pennsylvania and Illinois, the vote was practically unani-
mous for the Central Committee. The same holds true for the
New Bedford textile workers in our Party. The Central Committee
secured a decisive majority amongst the Party members in the rubber
centers, the packing house nuclei, the railroad nuclei and the shop
nuclei in the automobile factories.
Pittsburgh
292
Cleveland
375
Detroit
262
6 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
( 5 ) The Party has taken seriously and responded energetically
to the call of the 6th World Congress of the Comintern for ■pro-
letarianization of its ranks and leadership. It is already clear that
about 70 per cent of those elected as delegates to the National Con-
vention are workers in the factories, now at the bench, now in the
mill or mine. More than that, at least 90 per cent of the national
convention delegates are proletarian in character. The newly elected
district executive committees are on an equal plane of proletarian
composition. Let no comrade boast. Let no comrade slow down in
bis efforts to help proletarianize our Party in a true Bolshevik sense.
We still have a long way to go, but we have made a substantial
start. The social composition of the national convention and the
various district and section conventions, as well as of the newly
elected district committees, are proof of that. We are sure that the
incoming Central Committee will likewise reflect a tremendous
improvement in the social composition.
(6) The results in the Party elections cannot in any way at all
be taken as a victory of any group or combination of groups. In
fact, the elections are only an index of the extent to which the Party
has already advanced in liquidating all groups and smashing all
sjroup lines, in wiping out all existing factions. For instance, recent
weeks have witnessed a marked trend of former supporters of the
Opposition to the ranks of the Central Committee. An outstanding
example of this force for Party unification is to be found in the
fact that only the other day, Comrade Ella Reeve Bloor, for many
years an ardent adherent of the Opposition, one of the veterans of
our Party and in the labor movement as a whole, has broken with
the Opposition and has called upon Foster to stop the factional
struggle and to support the C. E. C. Every district shows this trend
towards wiping out the old factional lines, towards the breaking
down of groups, to be accelerating.
MAIN TASKS BEFORE OUR PARTY
The two main tasks before the Party are:
(1) To conduct a vigorous fight against the right danger;
(2) To liquidate factionalism and smash all existing groups in
the Party.
But to prepare the comrades to realize these tasks, to understand
the why and wherefore of such tasks, it is necessary, amongst other
prerequisites, to review historically, first, the various periods in the
development of our Party and, second, the line of the Communist
International towards our Party.
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 7
The course of the development of our Party — its ups and downs,
its inner conflicts, its defeats and successes, its m'istakes and short-
comings — is no accident, is no series of accidents. All of these de-
velopments and results are deeply rooted in the objective conditions
under which we have been working — in the divisions within the
ranks of the working class (foreign-born and native, skilled and
unskilled, Negro and white, etc), in the dominant world position
of American imperialism, etc. Nor has the line of the Comintern
towards our Party been an accident or a series of accidents.
CHAPTER II
THREE MAIN PERIODS OF OUR PARTY
THE PERIOD OF ULTRA-LEFTISM
Those comrades who have been in the Party from its inception
know that in the first days of our existence as a Party we were
ultra-left sick. I still recall how we called for armed insurrection
and the setting up of Soviets during the course of a trolley-car
strike in Brooklyn. I remember how in 1919 we asked for the
formation of Soviets along the water front during the course of a
longshoremen's strike in New York. Many a Party document came
from the pen of the writer utilizing the slogan of armed insurrec-
tion under conditions when it did not have the least content, the
slightest substance. Some comrades will recall the trade-union
policy of our Party in 1919-20 based on principle objections to
working within the existing labor unions because they were reac-
tionary.
Some of us might even recall the sharp differences in our ranks
in 1921 over the question of how to fight the ultra-left. For in-
stance, comrades will recollect how the Party leadership in 1921
came near being smashed to smithereens in defeating the proposal
of Cannon to expel five thousand workers from our Party because
they responded too slowly to our efforts for organizing an open
Party. Let no one laugh at the fact that the same renegade Cannon
now poses as a pure left-wing communist. Comrades might even
go back a little further and recall the role of Comrade Wagen-
knecht at the national left-wing conference held in New York in
June, 1919 — his hesitation, his wavering on the fundamental prin-
ciple of splitting the Socialist Party.
To the superficial observer it might be difficult to understand how
it comes about that Mr. Cannon and Comrade Wagenknecht,
8 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
regardless of what else they disagree over, are agreed upon one
point; namely, that the present Party leadership is a right-wing
leadership and that they, Cannon and Wagenknecht, are left, pure
communists. Really, for Cannon and those associated with Mm in
his Trotsky group and for Wagenknecht and those associated with
him in the Opposition to call the present leadership a right-wing
leadership is enough to make a horse laugh.
B. THE PERIOD OF RIGHT WING ORIENTATION FROM THE 3RD
TO THE 4TH CONVENTION
The present Opposition came into fortunately short-lived leader-
ship of the Party at the December, 1923, convention through an
alliance with Ludwig Lore, editor of the New York Volkszeitung,
and with the dominant leadership of the Finnish Federation, most
of whom are now expelled from the Party along with Lore as
right wingers and Trotskyists. This period is marked by a deep
swing to the right in the policies of the Party. The Party was reek-
ing with opportunism. We will cite here merely a few of the out-
standing examples of the dangerous right-wing path that the Party
was pursuing when the present Opposition constituted the leader-
ship — Foster-Cannon-Bittleman-Lore :
( 1 ) Endorsement of labor banking. Today we are unanimous
in denouncing labor banking as one of the Vilest manifestations of
class collaboration, as a proof of the corruption of the labor aris-
tocracy. Hard as it might be for comrades to believe, the Labor
Herald (the predecessor of Labor Unity), official organ of the
Trade Union Educational League, edited by Foster, once editori-
ally endorsed labor banking.
(2) The convention which gave birth to the Foster-Bittleman-
Cannon-Lore group as the leadership of the Party (1923)
adopted a resolution by a majority vote asking the Comintern to
reconsider its instruction to our Party to reorganize the Party on
the basis of shop nuclei.
(3) When this (1923) convention was over Mr. Lore proudly
exclaimed in the editorial columns of the Volkszeitung that the
victory of the Foster majority was a victory for Trotskyism. All
the efforts of the comrades in the present majority, then in the
minority on the C. E. C, to secure a repudiation, by the then ma-
jority (present Opposition) and their associates, of this proud boast
of Lore, failed.
(4) All our efforts to secure a repudiation of Trotskyism by
the Foster-Bittelman-Cannon-Lore C. E. C. of 1924-25 were
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 9
defeated. It was not until the Party's representative to the Comin-
tern cabled instrucions to the C. E. C. during the Fifth World
Congress to repudiate Trotskyism that the then C. E. C, domi-
nated by the present Opposition, came out against Trotskyism.
(5) During this period the Party's trade-union work was based
solely on the organized skilled workers. Amalgamation was the
sole slogan. The viewpoint of the present Opposition for a labor
party was so limited and narrow in its contents as to lead Foster
to advocate the organization of a labor party only as a means of
securing the undoing of Gompers. When the comrades constituting
a decisive section of the present majority of the C. E. C. raised
the Sssue of organizing the unorganized, they were then denounced
by the present Opposition as dual unionists and splitters.
(6) Lore, now expelled as a renegade, was the real ideological
leader of the present Opposition when it was the majority. An an-
alysis of the Central Committee voting records of 1924-25 shows
this to be the case. This was proven to the Comintern in 1925.
(7) The Commission of the Fifth Congress to handle the
American question instructed the present Opposition, when it was
the majority, to break with Lore and to unite with the followers
of Ruthenberg. Yet at the St. Paul convenion, June, 1924, after
this C. I. decision, the present Opposition and its followers joined
hands with Lore for a united front against the then Ruthenberg
minority.
(8) This American Commission further declared that:
"The comrades gathered around Comrades Hathaway and Cannon have
made a number of declarations which show that in their efforts to secure in-
fluence on the petit-bourgeoisie, they failed to maintain the Communist
position."
(9) Then there was the rank opportunist policy on the Negro
question. Notice the speech of Comrade Dunne at the Third Pro-
fintern Congress giving the official position of the Party (1924)
on the Negro question:
"That the black workers are not organized is not to be explained by the
race antagonism, but by the fact that the American workers in general are
not organized. In those branches of industry in which Negroes work, they
are accepted into the trade unions as members on a basis of equality. That
is the case in the Miners Union. . . . That is the case in the building trades.
There are unions which include only highly skilled workers and they do not
accept Negroes. When, however, in these branches of industry, Negroes
appear in large numbers and compete with the members of the union, then
they will be accepted as members with equal rights. If we are against dual
unions in general, we cannot be for dual Negro unions. Race prejudice exists,
it is true, but the best means of struggle against it will be the acceptance of
10 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
white and black workers in one organization and not the mobilization of the
Negroes on one side of the barrier and the whites on the other. We observe
that work is already being done on the inclusion of the Negroes in the white
unions. And if Comrade Losovsky in spite of that insists upon the or-
ganization of separate Negro unions in America, then we invite him to come
to America and try to occupy himself with this question at least for a year.
I am convinced that at the next Congress he would demand the head of that
comrade who might propose such a solution of the Negro question."
The policy on the Negro question adopted by the present C. E. C.
is totally at variance with the above opportunist policy. Nor has any
comrade lost his head over dropping the above Negro policy, advo-
cated by the Opposition when it was the C. E. C. Today we are
unanimously against such opportunist policies.
(10) Perhaps the best political characterization of the present
Opposition was made by Comrade Kuusinen, chairman of the Amer-
ican Commission appointed at the 5th Plenum of the Comintern,
when he said in discussing the dispute over the Labor Party:
"In the opinion of the American Commission, the majority (today the
Opposition) bases its policy in this respect (Labor Party) too much on
superficial and temporary phenomena."
Though it is true that the comrades of the Opposition have made
some political progress since this characterization was made, that
the differences between the present Opposition and the C. E. C. are
today smaller than at any previous time, yet the above characteriza-
tion of the Opposition given by Comrade Kuusinen unfortunately
still holds true to a great extent. One can cite numerous other in-
stances showing the basically opportunist line that our Party fol-
lowed between the 3rd and 4th National Conventions. We have so
far, above, only some of the most 'instructive, typical and out-
standing manifestations of the right-wing line followed by our
Party when the present Opposition was the majority of the Central
Committee.
CHAPTER III
FROM THE FOURTH TO THE FIFTH NATIONAL
CONVENTIONS OF OUR PARTY
THE MENACE OF OPPORTUNISM IN THE PARTY
Because of the might of American imperialism, our Party has
been subject, for a number of years, to the menace of social reform-
ism; has been faced for some time with the danger of opportunism,
of right-wing policies. The committing of right errors in the Party
by one leadership or by another cannot be separated from these ob-
jective conditions. Of course, the amount of political experience of
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 11
the comrades, the extent of their theoretical development, the years
of connection with the labor aristocracy and bureaucracy (Foster-
Dunne,) 1 these are also factors which make a Party leadership more
or less susceptible to the above-mentioned conditions which lay the
objective basis for the development and growth of social reformism
outside of our Party and its influence on our Party.
The fight against opportunism, against right-wing policies, first
crystallized into definite shape in our Party in the fight against the
present Opposition, when the latter was the majority. The leader
of this fight was Comrade Ruthenberg.
An examination of some Party documents reveals this to be the
unchallengeable truth. Thus we wrote in the resolution of the
minority (present majority) on the report of the Central Executive
Committee (present Opposition) at the Fourth National Conven-
tion, August, 1925, the following:
"The C. E. C. majority has ignored the independent unions in the trade-
union work. This was corrected by the decision of the Profintern in 1924,
but the decision of the Profitern has not been carried out. The failure to
take actual steps for the organization of the unorganized has been another
neglect of the trade-union work of the Party. The organization of the
unorganized is of vital importance in influencing the revolutionizing of the
organized labor movement in this country and the Party must take up this
work energetically. . . .
"The majority (present Opposition) found its greatest strength in the
support of the extreme right wing of our Party, without which it could not
have gained the majority in the Convention."
"The majority (present Opposition) maintains its fresent relationshif with
the right wing in the Party, without which it could, not be a majority in
the Party, and its policies are those of struggle against the left-wing repre-
sented by the minority group (present majority). The actions of the majority
in the Convention can only lead to a new and more bitter struggle between
it as the leader of the right wing of the Party and the minority (present
majority), the left wing, which has shown that it is able to formulate and
follow a true communist policy and lead the fight for really Bolshevizing
our Party. It leaves to the minority (present majority) no other course than
to continue the struggle against persecution and extermination and to keep
the Party on the'line of the Communist International." (See Fourth National
Convention, pages 67 to 70).
This clearly establishes the fact that the change in the Party
leadership, which brought about a condition whereby the 1924-25
Central Executive Committee is the Opposition and the 1924-25
minority is the Central Committee, grew out of the struggle in the
Party, n which struggle the platform of the present Central Corn-
et the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern Dunne admitted he was
once a ember v r the "labor-wing of the Democratic Party."
12 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
mittee was against opportunism, against the right-wing line of the
present Opposition.
LINE OF CEC FOR BOLSHEVIZATION
It was only after the Fourth National Convention that the Party
began to follow consciously a line against opportunism, against
Loreism, against Trotskyism, against the menace of right wingism
and for a policy of Bolshevization. In the pursuit of this policy,
the present leadership made numerous errors, some to the right,
some to the left.
It is instructive to note that in the various attacks against the pres-
ent leadership by the Opposition since the Fourth Convention of the
Party, the main line has been, until very recently, that the basis
of the present Central Executive Committee is ultra-left, is leftist
in character. It is only in recent months, in Moscow on the eve of
the Sixth Congress, that the Opposition has changed its cry. For
this there are special reasons, which we will point out herein.
Whatever else one may say we can at least agree that it is a fashion-
able Opposition, that it knows how to speculate on a specific con-
jecture in the Communist International. Such tactics border on the
ageotage. This is the strategy of the Bourse (the stock exchange)
and not strategy for the Communist Party. The Foster-Bittleman
opposition has based its strategy and very life on speculating on the
supposed development of sharp differences in the leadership of our
Russian brother Party.
Let us examine some of the main steps toward Bolshevization,
toward eradicating the menace of opportunism taken by the Party
under its present leadership. Merely to enumerate, these are:
( 1 ) The reorganization of the Party on the basis of shop and
street nuclei. The abolition of the Federation system — a Party of
nineteen language federations, actually nineteen Parties. The es-
tablishment of a centralized Party was an absolute prerequisite for
a successful fight against opportunism.
(2) The theoretical level of our Party is still too low, but in
the course of the past three years considerable headway has been
made by us in the ideological advance of our Party ranks.
(3) The Party has been thrown into mass work. Today more
than half our membership is in the trade unions. In 1924 only
about 30 per cent was in the trade unions. Every decision of the
Comintern has recognized the great headway made in mass work
since the 1925 convention.
(4) The Party has begun in earnest its campaign to organize
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 13
the unorganized. In this basic task we have not restricted ourselves
to propaganda, but have engaged in actual work. The comrades
will recall the struggle in the December, 1925, Plenum, by Com-
rades Browder and Johnstone, against the decision of the Central
C ornmittee to organize the new union in Passaic over the heads of
MacMahon and other reactionary trade-union bureaucrats.
(5) Our ranks are still far from complete unification, but
great progress has already been made in this direction, as shown in
the results of the present Party discussions and elections.
(6) We have laid the beginnings of effective Negro work.
This work is still weak. It has many errors. It has shown manifes-
tations of right wingism, but its main line and trend are in the cor-
rect communist direction.
THE PARTY'S STRUGGLE AGAINST OPPORTUNISM
(7) The Party has within the last three years, time and again,
fought against opportunism, instead of tolerating or fostering it
as it did under the leadership of the present Opposition. It is only
the driving force of the present Central Committee, which yanked
Lore and his henchmen out of our Party, which threw Salutsky into
the gutter of the trade-union bureaucracy.
The Central Committee has conducted a vigorous policy against
pessimism. For example, the Central Committee, despite opposition
from Cannon and members of the present Opposition, severely con-
demned Swabeck (once Chicago District Organizer, now expelled
as a Trotskyist renegade) when he said in his August, 1926, report
to the Political Committee:
"A pessimistic attitude has seized the Party membership . . . generally a
certain lack of faitli within the Party membership in any leadership is the
result. . .
"As to the present time, when our Party can no longer live and feed upon
the glory of the Russian Revolution, we must recognize more than ever that
our main task is to gain working-class contact and actually become part of
the lives and struggles of the American working class."
It is clear that already in 1926 there was the basis for Trotsky-
ism in the conception of Swabeck. To him already then the prole-
tarian victory in Russia had lost its revolutionary lustre and inspira-
tion. To him, Swabeck, already three years ago there was an anti-
thesis between the proletarian Russian Revolution and the develop-
ment of a mass Communist Party in the United States. .
And when Comrade Foster further voiced pessimism in his over-
estimation of the strength of American imperialism and the power
14 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
of the trade-union bureaucracy and labor aristocracy, the Central
Committee spoke firmly and clearly. In the July, 1926, Workers
Monthly, Comrade Foster declared in his article entitled "Trade
Union Capitalism" :
"Even with their present meager financial resources, which they use unscrup-
ulously to defeat democracy in the unions, the trade-union bureaucrats are
exceedingly difficult to replace. But once they get the resources of a whole
series of trade-union capitalists behind them, they will become virtually in-
vincible.
"The savings (workers') exist. Their total is enormous and they are full
of dynamic possibilities." (Our emphasis).
Of course the Central Committee rejected this opportunist, pes-
simistic conception of the Opposition. The policy of the Party in
the trade-union field has shown, especially in our various big strug-
gles of recent date, that the above conception is dangerously false
and could lead only to the most harmful results for our Party,
if translated into action.
FIGHT AGAINST OPPORTUNIST POLICIES IN TRADE-UNION WORK
(8) The fight against the menace of right-wing policies has been
conducted by the Central Committee with special vigor in the indus-
trial work. For instance, the fight against united fronts from on
top with reactionary trade-union bureaucrats. We have in mind
so glaring a case as the proposal of such outstanding leaders of the
Opposition as Browder and Johnstone, to the effect that the policy
of the communist fraction in the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union, at the end of 1925, should have been:
"To endorse the maneuver at the Convention (I. L. G. W. U.) of trying
to swing the Sigman forces behind the candidacy of Hyman (left-wing can-
didate) for president of the I. L. G. W. U. on the basis of our forces getting
a majority of the General Executive Board, and a fight for proportional
representation, general amnesty (for expelled members) and as many other
of our planks as possible in the left-wing program. That in the whole
campaign from now on until the convention and afterwards, our comrades
be instructed to carry on the sharpest criticism of Sigman, as well as
Breslauer."
Fortunately for the Party, it did not entertain such illusions about
Sigman, even in 1925, as the Opposition did.
(9) P'or years the Opposition hammered away at the Central
Executive Committee that it is in favor of dual unionism. For ex-
ample, in -a confidential document presented to the Comintern in
1926 by Comrades Foster and Bittelman, entitled "Weaknesses of
the Present Central Executive Committee of the Workers (Com-
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 15
munist) Party in Trade Union Work," we find on page 6, the
following enlightening comment:
"In the textile industry, where the workers are in a state of fer-
ment ever repeated wage cuts, the previous C. E. C. of the Party
(present Opposition) through the T. U.E. L., put into effect a pol-
icy of bringing together the many unions into united front commit-
tees for a common struggle against the employers. The present
C. E. C. has diverted this movement from its proper course by
turning the united front committees into dues-paying dual unions.
This fake policy broke our connections with other unions in the
industry. Reporting to the C. E. C. on this 'united front' dual
union, Secretary Johnstone of the T. U. E. L. says:
". . . Within the past two weeks, two organizers have been placed in the
field to organize individual members, and the whole united front program
has been completely forgotten by our people. But while we dropped the
united front and cut ourselves oil from the unions by organizing a new rival
among the sixteen existing unions, the conservative officials took up the united
front idea and are now forming a committee of the United Textile Workers,
the Associated Silk Workers, the Machinists' Union, etc., while our forces
are being frittered away in a dual union.'
"The textile situation shows two distinct weaknesses of the Ruthenberg
C. E. C. in trade-union work. The first is its misunderstanding of the united
front policy and how to apply it. The second is that it is not yet free
from the ultra-leftist dual unionism which dominated the revolutionary
movement in the United States for 3 years. In many instances the present
C. E. C. displays this sectarian dual union tendency."
We must register very clearly the fact that the painted canaries
of our Opposition (as Comrade Kalfides has very well said) are now
singing ■a different song. We wonder whether it is only a change
of cage. We know it is a change of paint. It is especially signifi-
cant to note that the heaviest attack against the present C. E. C. as
dual unionists came at the time of its first effort to organize a new
union and over an event which later proved to be one of the best
pages in the history of our Party, despite all its shortcomings and
errors — the heroic organization and struggle of the Passaic textile
strikers. What is more, the errors which were made in Passaic
were primarily of a character against the line of the Central Com-
mittee, as criticized above by the Opposition.
opposition's opportunist labor party policy
(10) Finally, we must cite a most important decision made by
our Party in the labor party question. We refer to the emphatic
rejection by the Central Committee of the following opportunist;
policy toward the labor party question proposed by Comrade Brow--
16 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
der in his document entitled "The New Orientation of the Ameri-
can Labor Movement and the Platform of Building a Mass Left
Wing." The comrades will recall that in the December, 1925,
Plenum, Comrade Browder developed a "theory" that there was
growing in the ranks of the trade-union bureaucracy a two-and-a-
half international tendency. In this now "historical" document,
Comrade Browder said as follows:
"We must fight the Gompers non-partisan policy on principle. But where
trade-union non-partisan political committees have real mass support we must
penetrate them and raise the slogan 'For a Labor Party.' If the trade unions,
either individually or combined together as local labor parties, affiliate with
such petit-bourgeois organizations as the progressive party and the various
state farmer-labor parties, we should not split with them, but shall continue
our agitation within them for the labor party."
Note this one-sided orientation — this orientation exclusively on
the labor aristocracy. It is out of this dangerously false orientation
that the Opposition developed the theory of labor party committees
based exclusively on the existing trade unions, that Comrade Bittel-
man developed his liquidationist theory of labor party clubs with
individual members. The Party can well greet the fact that all of
the above opportunist conceptions on the labor party question were
rejected by the Central Committee.
CAMPAIGNS AGAINST TROTSKYISM AND OPEN OPPORTUNISM
(11) The Party under its present leadership, has been among the
first sections of the Communist International in combatting devia-
tions from the Leninist line. The American Trotskyists, Cannon,
Eastman, Lore (all former members of the Foster-Bittelman oppo-
sition), have denounced the present leadership of the Party as the
American banner bearer of the fight against international Trotsky-
ism. Our Party has pursued an energetic policy in the struggle
against Brandler and Thalheimer and the other right w'mgers and
conciliators in the German Party. In the Fifth Plenum of the
Comintern, the comrades representing the viewpoint now held by
the majority of the Party were amongst the most aggressive in the
struggle against Brandler, Thalhe'imer, Bubnik and the Trotskyist
deviators from the Leninist line. Our Central Committee gave
prompt and energetic endorsement to the struggle of the Central
Committee of the C. P. S. U. against the right danger. The right
wingers and the conciliators in the Commun'ist Party of Germany,
were repeatedly sharply condemned by the Central Committee.
(12) One of the strongest sources of right-wing errors, one of
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 17
the most redoubtable centers of opportunism in our Party, has been
the leadership of the Finnish Federation in the days before the
Fourth National Convention (1925). The Central Committee has
conducted a vigorous fight against this leadership and its outright
opportunist policies, despite the interference and opposition of the
minority.
It is the present leadership of the Party that has destroyed politi-
cally such notorious right wingers as Askeli, Sulkanen, Boman,
Alanne, Saari, Aine and Hyrske, in the face of systematic resist-
ance by the Opposition (whose leading supporters amongst the Fin-
nish comrades have all been expelled as right wingers and Trotsky-
ists) which was engaged in a merciless struggle against the left
forces in the Finnish fraction, led by Puro and Heikkinen. There
are still dangerous remnants of right wingism in the Finnish Frac-
tion. The Central Committee is pledged to extirpate these sources
of opportunism and to speed up the further Bolshevization of our
Finnish Fraction.
(13) A real beginning of Bolshevik self-criticism has been made
in the Party. It is no longer a question of mere admission of
errors. The Central Committee tries systematically to avoid the
repetition of errors through an analysis of the objective sources of
the various mistakes and through taking the necessary steps to make
impossible their recurrence by means of, first of all, resorting to
the sharpest criticism of its own errors.
CHAPTER IV
FROM THE FIFTH TO THE SIXTH NATIONAL CON-
VENTION
RIGHT ERRORS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE SINCE THE LAST
PARTY CONVENTION
Since the Fifth National Convention, the Party, under its present
leadership, has made a number of serious right errors. These errors
have been severely criticized by the Sixth Congress of the Commun-
ist International, which has emphasized that they cannot be attrib-
uted to the majority leadership alone. But being primarily respon-
sible for the Central Committee, no doubt the burden of guilt for
these right errors rests on the shoulders of the present leadership.
The Panken mistake was a right mistake. It grew out of a wrong
estimation of the Socialist Party and its role. A similar mistake was
18 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
made in Milwaukee. In the latter instance the error was condemned
and corrected by the Political Committee.
The open letter to the Socialist Party was an example of crass
opportunism. It is true, the initiative in the sending of this open
letter came from Comrade Bittelman, the theoretical leader of the
Opposition. But the Polbureau as a whole must be blamed for it.
The underestimation of Negro work is likewise a deviation to the
right. White chauvinism has been fought with energy by the
Central Committee, but there has not been a sufficient systematic
ideological campaign against white chauvinism and for drawing
the entire Party 'into the Negro work.
In our fight against the imperialist war danger, we have made
many right errors. The Central Committee is to be roundly con-
demned for permitting so full-fledged an opportunist, so hopeless a
right winger, as Comrade Gomez, to be directing th'is work for so
long a time and to make such a great variety of right-wing errors
as typified by the slogan "Stop the Plow of Blood in Nicaragua,"
and the plea of guilty in the Washington demonstration of last
Spring. The Party as a whole has not fought with enough vigor
against Yankee imperialism in Latin America. The slow response
of the districts to the Central Committee's call for the intensifica-
tion of the activities against the imperialist war danger, shows to
what extent the right danger is a menace in our Party.
The slowness of the Central Committee prior to the February
Plenum, in orientating the Party towards the organization of the un-
organized as the central guiding task in our trade-union work, is
also a right error. This grew out of the fact that for a time, all of
us underestimated the capacities and vitality of our Party in the big
struggles.
These errors have been corrected in the main, since the World
Congress. There are steps being taken to improve the Party's posi-
tion also in the anti-imperialist work in order to complete the cor-
rection of the above mentioned mistakes.
The Central Committee is committed unqualifiedly to the line
of the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern and declares that
the main danger in the Comintern is the right danger. This is
especially true for the United States where imperialism is still on
the upgrade and where, therefore, social reformism has a broad
objective basis of support. The role of the A. F. of L. and the
Socialist Party in disseminating the poison of opportunism in the ranks
of the labor movement, cannot be overestimated. The Party must
continue a most thorough-going campaign against these agencies of
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 19
the capitalist class in the ranks of the labor movement.
We have mentioned the dominant types of right errors committed
by the Central Committee since the last Party Convention. We have
also committed a number of left deviations. This is particularly
to be noted in the mining strike and in our election campaign locally.
HAS OUR PARTY GONE RIGHT OR LEFT?
In the course of the discussion, some of the Opposition comrades
have repeatedly said: "Yes, the Party used to make left m'istakes;
the Party was once to the left. Those were the days when Comrade
Ruthenberg was the leader. Ruthenberg was a leftist. But now
that Ruthenberg is gone, the Party has gone to the right."
What are the facts? It is true that the Opposition has always
attacked Comrade Ruthenberg as a leftist. But this attack was not
leveled against Comrade Ruthenberg as an individual but against
his policies. Comrade Ruthenberg was the chief formulator and
the driving force in the policies of the Party. The attack of "leftist"
leveled against Ruthenberg was an attack on him not as an individ-
ual person but an attack on the policies of the Party. If one were
to examine or merely to recite a fraction of the attacks on the poli-
cies of Comrade Ruthenberg, on the policies of the Party in the
days before the 1927 convention, he would find that we were al-
ways accused of being the left and that the Opposition seemed to be
suffering congen'itally from opportunism, from right-wing inclina-
tions and tendencies.
Consequently, if one were to answer correctly the question, has
the Party gone to the right or to the left since Comrade Ruthen-
berg's death, he would have to examine the policies of the Party
since the last Party convention. To do this one must examine the
policies of the Party in the principal campaigns we have had.
What were the principal campaigns of the Party since the 1927
convention? They were ( 1 ) in trade-union work, (2) in the fight
against the imperialist war danger, (3) the election campaign, (4)
the Negro work. Let us now proceed to examine the polices of the
Party in these major campaigns and see whether these policies are to
the right or to the left of the policies which we pursued before the
5th National Convention in 1927.
In the trade-union work, the Party has moved considerably to the
left. No one would today dare propose the previous platform of the
Opposition for trade-union work — to fight in an unprincipled man-
ner for capture of offices in the trade unions. No one would today
think of proposing amalgamation as the cure-all slogan. None of
20 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
us today confuses the labor aristocracy with the whole working
class. Today the center of gravity in our industrial work is amongst
the unorganized, the unskilled and semi-skilled, the decisive section
of the American proletariat. Compared with our trade-union work
and policies of today, our activities and policies before the 5th Na-
tional Convention were far to the right.
In the campaign against the war danger, our Party has moved
considerably to the left. The slogan of partial disarmament which
was the red, or shall we say the yellow, thread of our 1924-26
election programs has been very properly discarded and thrown on
the junk heap. The Party's anti-war program is a truly Bolshevist
program.
It would be folly even to attempt a comparison between the 1928
election campaign and that of 1924. In 1924 our election cam-
paign was outright opportunist. The election platform spoke even
of workers' control of production, one of the pillar slogans of
Brandler, Thalheimer & Company. This was the program which
all of us followed in 1924. The 1928 election platform is a com-
munist platform in the best sense of the word. In our 1928 elec-
tion campaign we committed a number of errors, some right and
some left and some stupid. But in the main it was a communist
campaign.
Finally, regarding the Negro question. Our policy, with the
help of the C. I. is a communist policy in Negro work. No one
in our Party today would propose even for consideration the 1924
Negro policy of our Party. Here we have gone considerably to
the left. Here we now have a correct communist approach and
policy.
It is obvious that the talk on the part of some comrades of the
Opposition that "something has happened" in our Party (Bittelman
at the Anglo-American Secretariat during the 6th World Con-
gress) is just that much balderdash; it is just nonsense. It is true
something has happened in our Party. The Party has gone
very much to the left since the present Central Committee as-
sumed leadership. The going of the Party to the left
proceeded at an accelerated pace since the 1927 convention.
When we speak of right and left, we do not speak
mechanically. We do not speak geographically. We are not emo-
tional about it. We speak of right and left in a Leninist sense.
Today the Party has far more correct polic'ies; is far more a Com-
munist Party; is far more on the road towards Bolshevization than
it has ever been before. And what is most important is that this
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 21
direction, this development, is a conscious policy of not only the
leadership of the Party, but what is most welcome, of the over-
whelming majority of the membership of the Party.
SOME RECENT RIGHT ERRORS OF THE OPPOSITION
We have seen that the Opposition gave the Party a right-wing
leadership when it was the majority of the C. E. C. We have seen
that the present leadership in the Party was horn primarily as a re-
sult of its fight against this right-wing leadership personified in the
1924 political trio of Cannon, Bittelman, Lore. We have empha-
sized that Comrades Foster and Bittelman have advanced towards
a correct communist political line, since the expulsion of Cannon
and Lore from the Party. At the same time it becomes especially
necessary to point out at this time the persistent making of right
errors by our Opposition since it is now yelling that it is the dis-
coverer of the right danger in the American Party and that it is
the left of the Party.
The writer maintains that all this talk by the Opposition of the
CEC being a right-wing committee is just that much smoke-screen
of the Opposition to hide its own opportunist inclinations. We will
cite here a number of right-wing errors committed by the Opposition
within recent months only — all of which errors have not crept into
the Party policy because, fortunately for the Party, the Opposition
was in the minority.
1 . — Comrades Bittelman and Foster opposed the proposal to en-
dorse Panken conditionally. In this they were correct. Instead,
these comrades proposed that the Central Committee of the Party
should offer a united front to the Socialist Party locally. In other
words, instead of a conditional endorsement of Panken, our com-
rades of the Opposition even went further to the right and fostered
the illusion that our Party could have a common program with the
Socialist Party for the municipal ticket as a whole in New York
City in 1927. Instead of endorsing conditionally one Socialist
Party candidate our Opposition proposed a flat endorsement
of about thirty S. P. candidates. This error showed itself in the
following proposal of Comrade Foster, in the Polcom meeting of
October 27, 1927:
"That the policy of the New York DEC in giving- qualified support to
Panken (the Socialist Party candidate for judge) was incorrect. Tie Party
should have affroached the S. P. with general frofosals for the establish-
ment of a united front labor ticket in the New York elections, based
minimum frogmm." (Our emphasis).
on a
22 PAGES PROM PARTY HISTORY
SOME OF COMRADE BITTELMAN's "CONTRIBUTIONS"
2. — This opportunistic attitude towards the Socialist Party was
continued by the Opposition even after the Central Committee had
corrected its Panken error, even after the receipt of the April 18th
letter of the Comintern Political Secretariat criticizing our Party
for sending the open letter to the Socialist Party. Notice the fol-
lowing incident. The Philadelphia District Committee proposed
the sending of an open letter to the Socialist Party and to the so-
cialist officials of Reading, Pa. It sent this draft letter to the
Agitprop Dept. for approval and correction. Comrade Bittelman
took charge of the matter as representative of the Agitprop Dept.
Instead of correcting the error of the Philadelphia comrades, Com-
rade Bittelman aggravated this right-wing error by his own right
"improvements." For instance, Comrade Bittelman himself wrote
the following sentences into the draft letter of the Philadelphia
comrades, who later corrected their error. Wrote Comrade Bittel-
man:
"The November elections, which resulted in placing' the Socialist Party and
a number of its most prominent leaders in control of the administration of
the city of Reading-, afford you (the S. P. government officials) an oppor-
tunity to ORGANIZE AND INSPIRE THE WORKERS FOR STRUGGLE
AGAINST THE EMPLOYERS' OFFENSIVE." (Bittelman addition in
capitals.)
This opportunist gem went on to state:
"Despite your failure up to the present to meet and deal with these issues
we SUGGEST that you MUST yet, while it is not too late, prove by ener-
getic action along this line that you have not altogether abandoned the prin-
ciples of class struggle which you professed at one time, that you will dis^
continue your present policies" which, WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR
NOT, SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE CAPITALISTS, and work
vigorously and consistently in the furtherance of the real needs of the work-
ing class."
No comment is necessary on the above right-wing conception of
the Socialist Party as worsened by Comrade Bittelman. But let us
close w'ith the conclusion Comrade Bittelman reached in this letter
which he approved for sending to the city government officials of
the Socialist Party:
"We consider it our duty in behalf of the workers whom we represent to
give you every cooperation in the carrying out of this program, if you will
undertake to do so."
Then Comrade Bittelman, to make sure that his opportunist line
reaches and poisons the maximum number of workers possible,
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 23
wrote the following foot-note as an instruction to the Philadelphia
Comrades:
"The value of this document will be exactly nil if the sending is not fol-
lowed up with a wide distribution of it among the masses. . . ."
Comrades might ask where Comrade Bittelman gets the audacity
to call any other comrade in the Party a right winger after such
a masterly contribution to the crassest opportunism that our Party
has faced for some time. Comrade Bittelman has not yet corrected
this typical opportunist error of his. At the May, 1928 Plenum
he refused point blank to correct himself.
3. — It is known throughout the Party that Comrade Foster was
against instructing the communist fraction in the National Miners'
Union fighting for a policy of having a plain, unequivocal endorse-
ment of the class struggle in the constitution of the organization.
Later on, of course, under pressure of the Central Committee,
Comrade Foster himself corrected this right-wing error.
4. — In the course of the mining struggle, when the left wing
was assuming real strength, when the ground was being prepared
for the organization of a national miners' union, Comrade Bittelman
came forward with a policy of total capitulation before the extreme
difficulties at hand. Comrade Bittelman proposed that the left wing
should take the initiative in calling off the mine strike which was
called and sabotaged by Lewis. Comrade P'oster, (this was in the
days prior to the present faction fight) denounced this proposal by
Comrade Bittelman as a strikebreaking measure.
5. — In the course of the mining campaign, Comrade Wagen-
knecht, who now yells from the housetops with the full wind of
his right and left lungs that he is a left winger, resisted determinedly
the building of the Party units in the Western Pennsylvania coal
fields during the strike.
6. — This same internationally renowned foe of opportunism,
Comrade Wagenknecht, very recently proposed that the commun-
ists should be the tail to the liberal kite in the proposed Mooney
campaign! And a little while before this stelf-styled "left of the
left" communists called upon striking textile workers to join with
him in yelling "Three cheers for the Jewish Daily Forward," the
vicious anti-working class organ of the American Socialist Party.
7. — As the recently appointed head of the Anti-Imperialist De-
partment, Comrade Bittelman has made a number of serious fight
errors which were corrected by the Central Committee. We need
24 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
but cite his slogan "No More New Cruisers." This proposal of
partial disarmament is a petit-bourgeois pacifist error which the
Plenums and Congresses of the Communist International and
Young Communist International have repeatedly condemned. Dur-
ing the strike of the fruit workers in Colombia, Comrade Bittel-
man threw out the utterly opportunist slogan that the struggle of
these workers who were brutally murdered by Wall Street's puppet
government of Colombia, was a struggle for the defense of the
law of the land.
OTHER RIGHT ERRORS OF THE OPPOSITION
8. — Only a few weeks ago two prominent supporters of the
Opposition in the New York District, Comrades Lewitt and Selig-
man, were co-signers of a statement issued by Brookwood, denounc-
ing the communist movement and kowtowing to the American
Federation of Labor bureaucracy. This outright dangerous right
wingism was condemned by the Polbureau.
9. — In the Minnesota District, supporters of the Opposition have
systematically resisted the Party's policy of fighting Shipstead as a
betrayer and destroyer of the labor party movement. In this dis-
trict, individuals like Vincent Dunne, Skoglund, Hedlund, Coover,
have systematically placed Farmer-Labor Party discipline as against
and above Party discipline. These individuals have since been expel-
led from the Party as Trotskyists. Though these erstwhile sup-
porters of the Opposition have refused to fight Shipstead in the past,
they are now vigorously fighting the Party.
10. — The Opposition has not only been tolerant and conciliatory
towards right-wing mistakes but has even rendered protection to
comrades committing right-wing errors and has been very slow in
taking measures against elements within their own ranks deviating
from the correct Leninist line either openly to the right or as in the
case of Trotskyism, when such deviations were camouflaged with
left phrases. We can cite the following three typical instances to
show the correctness of our conclusion.
a) The consistent protection given to the right wing in the
Finnish Fraction (Sulkanen, Askeli, Aine, etc.) who have now
united with Fascisti against the Party.
b) The resistance by the Opposition in the Polbureau to the pro-
posals for censuring the Minnesota right wingers on the Labor
Party Shipstead question.
c) The extreme slowness with which the Opposition reacted to
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 25
the development of the Cannon-Trotsky outbreak in its own ranks.
It must be stated here that recently the Opposition admitted its error
on this question of its slowness in bringing the Cannon-Trotsky de-
velopment before the Party.
That is why it is no accident that throughout the Party discussion
and particularly the membership meetings, the representatives of the
Opposition were so pessimistic and were so active in minimizing the
Party's achievements which the Comintern has always emphasized.
It would not be an exaggeration to state that all of the Opposition
representatives put together at the membership meetings did not
spend a total of one half hour in discuss'ing the Party achievements.
Nor is it an accident that the Opposition has developed a whole
system of reservations to political decisions of the Communist Inter-
national. The bible of the Opposition in its policy of reservations
to Comintern decisions is still the declaration of reservations made
by Comrade Johnstone at the Sixth World Congress. At this time
declarations by Comrade Johnstone take on special importance in
view of the article by Comrades Browder and Zack in which the
Opposition leadership is mentioned in the following order of im-
portance: Bittelman, Johnstone, Foster, Zack, Browder and Dunne.
CHAPTER v
A CORRECT ESTIMATE OF THE OPPOSITION
The Opposition is the main, but not the only source of right
errors in our Party. It is the principal source of the right danger
in our Party. The Opposition has given birth to the most notorious
opportunists, to the worst incurable right wingers and opponents of
the Comintern line in America. Let us cite some of the most out-
standing opportunist, right-wing figures in the history of our Party.
They have all been sworn enemies of the present Central Committee.
First, comes the infamous Salutsky, than whom there is no more
bitter and desperate opponent of the present leadership of our Party
and of the Communist International. He was expelled from our
Party through the initiative of the present leadership aga'inst the
opposition of Cannon and his associates.
Secondly, we have the veteran right winger, Ludwig Lore. Even
in the old Socialist Party many of us have had numerous conflicts
with him as an opponent of the genuine left forces. He was once
an integral part of the Opposition leadership.
Thirdly, Eastman, the notorious enemy of Marxism, was brought
26 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
into our Party by Cannon and was expelled for his Trotskyist ac-
tivities only after the present majority took the leadership.
Fourthly, the whole Cannon-Trotsky group is an off-spring of
the Opposition, particularly in its present fight against the Central
Committee as a right wing. Not a single one of the District "he-
roes" of the Trotsky group is a supporter of the Central Committee.
Without exception we find as Trotskyists throughout the country,
such elements as Dr. Konikow in Boston, Cannon in New York,
Morgenstern in Philadelphia, Brahtin in Cleveland, Mass and
Reynolds in Detroit, Swabeck and Giganti in Chicago, Vincent
Dunne and Skoglund, etc., in Minneapolis, Buehler and Allard in
Kansas, Carlson in Seattle, etc., — all supporters of the Opposition,
all opponents of the Central Committee.
Fifthly, Askeli, Sulkanen and company, who have been thrown
out by the Central Committee from the leadership of the Finnish
Fraction, have been and continue to be staunch supporters of the
present Opposition. These individuals are plain social democrats
and are now working openly hand in glove with the Finnish social
democrats against the Party.
Sixthly, and last but not least, in order to have a clear estimate
of the dangerous opportunist inclinations of our Opposition it must
he said that the one district which is reeking with opportunism and
which has been guilty of more and worse right-wing errors, than any
other three districts combined, is the California District, led exclu-
sively by Opposition supporters. The leadership of the California
District, repudiated by the last California District Convention,
which has rebelled against the right-wing policy, has yet to learn
the most elementary concepts of discipline in a Communist Party.
AN INSTRUCTIVE ROLL CALL
Political stability and a sense of communist responsibility are es-
sential prerequisites for leadership in a Communist Party. On this
basis, it is very instructive to examine what has happened to the
personnel of the Central Committee members, candidates and al-
ternates as elected in 1925 and 1927. Of the nineteen Opposition
Central Committee members and alternates in 1925, we find the
following casualties: 1. — Abern, expelled from the Party. 2. —
Cannon, expelled from the Party. 3. — Reynolds, suspended from
the Party and under consideration for expulsion as a Trotskyite.
4. — Schachtman, expelled from the Party. 5. — Manley, left the
Party before his death. 6. — Swabeck, expelled from the Party.
7. — Sullivan, disappeared from the Party and expelled. 8. —
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 27
O'Flaherty, expelled from the Party. 9. — Loeb, left the Party and
joined a business organization and is now affiliated with a Fascist
Jewish Business Men's Association in Chicago.
Nearly the entire 1924 National Executive Committee of the
Young Workers League, which was overwhelmingly supporting the
Opposition, is now outside the Party. With the exception of
Williamson and Salzman, all the Opposition members of this NEC
have either left the Party or been expelled from the Party for
Trotskyism, violation of Party discipline or some other such act
against the Party.
Of this Central Committee, the present majority lost the leader
of the Party, Comrade Ruthenberg, through death. This was the
heaviest loss our Party has suffered to date. The above mentioned
"losses" by the Opposition, were, of course, gains for the Party.
Of the Central Committee elected at the 1927 Convention, the
Opposition had the following casualties: 1. — Abern, expelled from
the Party. 2. — Cannon, expelled from the Party. 3. — Swabeck,
expelled from the Party. 4. — Reynolds, suspended from the Party.
5. — Schachtman, expelled from the Party. At the same time every
member of the majority of the 1927 Central Committee has con-
tinued at his post carrying out the Party duties and responsibilities.
But today there is no consolidated right-wing group in. our Party.
It is true the Opposition has given birth to the whole galaxy of oppor-
tunists herein enumerated. It was a painful birth indeed, but with
the help of the Central Committee and the Comintern, the Opposi-
tion fortunately got rid of these opportunist forces and is now in
a position to work in greater political harmony with the majority
of the Central Committee and to become an organic part of the
Party's leadership.
The Party membership has spoken and spoken more decisively
than ever. The Comintern has given guidance to the Party, through
the decisions of the Sixth World Congress and the subsequent de-
cisions of the Political Secretariat and Presidium. The Opposition
must now drop its ridiculous notions of superimposing upon the
Party as a nucleus for leadership, the six cylinder combination ar-
ranged by Browder and Zack themselves 'in the order of leadership
as Bittelman, Johnstone, Foster, Zack, Browder and Dunne. The
Party Convention which will be genuinely proletarian in character
and which will consist of the best representatives of the Party and
its struggles will select the incoming Central Executive Committee
on the basis of correct communist policy, Party responsibility and
28 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
capacity. The decision of the Convention will be binding for every
Party member. Every Party member must unreservedly accept the
decision of the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern to the
effect that we must have iron discipline in our ranks, that the minor-
ity must absolutely subordinate itself to the majority.
CHAPTER VI
THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL AND ITS
AMERICAN SECTION
In no other Party discussion that we have had to date, has the
role of the Communist International, has the relationship of the
Communist International to its American section, received so much
attention as in the present one. This 'is due to a multitude of
reasons. One of the main causes is the fact that in this discussion,
considerable time was spent on the examination of fundamental
problems.
In no previous discussion was the question of the general trend
of American imperialism, whether it is still ascending or descending,
put so sharply. The same applies to the question of the estimate
by the Communist International of the Central Committee. It is
in this sense that the maintenance of reservations to Comintern de-
cisions played so important a part in the Party discussion. That is
why the emphatic reservations to the decisions of the Sixth World
Congress on the United States, as made by Comrade Johnstone in
his declaration in behalf of the Opposition, assumes so much im-
portance.
What has been the line of the Communist International towards
the American Party? The Comintern has time and again criticized
our Party, corrected its shortcomings, cleared up certain political
misconceptions, set the Party straight in the trade-union field,
brought pressure to bear for reorganization of the Party along Leni-
nist lines, etc. This is the duty of the Communist International. The
Communist International represents the collective, centralized com-
munist will, based on the experiences, capacities and composite qual-
ities of what is best in all its sections, in the various Parties.
The Communist International is the world Communist Party,
with every one of its sections an organic part. Hence, the Commun-
ist International generally deals with basic problems confronting
the various sections. It is very seldom that the Executive Com-
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 29
mittee of the Communist International deals with smaller inner
Party matters. The Communist International deals with the main
line and guides carefully these political lines of the various sec-
tions. An examination of the attitude of the Communist Interna-
tional towards the American Party reveals that since 1923, the
Comintern has consistently supported the main political line of the
present leadership. Without going into details, the writer proposes
to cite the decisive sections of the various Comintern decisions.
OPEN LETTER OF ECCI TO PARTY'S THIRD CONVENTION, 1923
In the open letter from the Executive Committee of the Com-
munist International to the Third National Convention of our
Party, the Comintern declared, on December 7, 1923:
"The excellent work that has been done by the communists in the left
wing of the labor movement in the United States, demonstrates that if all
the comrades were members of the trade unions, the work would increase
manifold. . . .
"The propaganda that the Workers Party has conducted during the past
year has been most effective. As a result, the ideas of communism and the
communist movement are the center of discussion both among the workers
and the capitalists. . . .
"The vast sentiment for communism that the Workers Party has aroused,
must be organized. Your Central Executive Committee acted right in in-
augurating a campaign for membership. . . .
"The Workers Party has applied communist tactics correctly in seeking a
united front of all forces to fight the capitalist system in the United States.
It has sought a united front not only on the economic but particularly on the
political field. . . .
"The organization of the Federated Farmer Labor Party was an achieve-
ment of primary importance."
This was an estimate of the Party's work prior to the Third Na-
tional Convention, when the kernel of the present leadership was
the basis of the then Party leadership.
COMINTERN FIFTH PLENUM ON AMERICAN SITUATION
At the Fifth Plenum of the Communist International the Ameri-
can question received considerable notice. In estimating the dif-
ferences between the present majority and the present Opposition,
the Comintern Plenum Commission on the American question de-
clared :
"The minority of the Central Executive Committee (present majority) of
the Workers Party was right in having confidence in the vitality and future
30 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
of the labor party movement. The Workers Party must now do its utmost
to further this movement."
And Comrade Kuusinen, chairman of the Commission, declared
as follows:
"In the opinion of the American Commission, the majority (present Oppo-
sition) based its policy in this respect (Labor Party) too much on superficial,
temporary, phenomena. The minority (present majority) is absolutely right
in its confidence in the vitality of the labor party movement.
The Resolution on the American question, adopted by the Fifth
Plenum, further made the following declaration relative to Lore,
who at that time was a member of the Central Committee, member
of the majority group of the Central Committee (present Oppo-
sition) :
"Lore represents a non-communist tendency of the Workers Party. Already
the decision of the ECCI of May, 19 24, pointed out that Lore's ideology
was the ideology of the second and a half international. Lore supported Levi
against the Comintern. ... He fought against the necessary centralism of
the Party in the name of the autonomy of the German Federation. The
ideological struggle against Lore's tendency is essential for the Party. The
ECCI proposes to the Workers Party to come to a definite decision on the
Lore question at its next. Congress. In any case, the Executive is of the opinion
that the Central Committee of the Party is not the place for such an oppor-
tunist as Lore."
In this light, it is very important to note that on December 4,
1924, Fahle Burman, executive secretary of the Finnish Federation
at that time, transmitted a long tirade to all Finnish branches against
the then minority (present majority) and in behalf of the then
majority (present Opposition) reading in part:
"The Central Committee majority (present Opposition) is composed of
Comrades Foster, Cannon, Abern and the undersigned. Comrade Lore has
been of slightly different opinion but has nearly without exception voted
with the majority (present Opposition)."
The comrades might say: what is the use of going into all this
history of the Party? First of all, it is time that we did examine
the history of the Party a little. Secondly, as has already been em-
phasized, the Comintern decisions, the Comintern attitude, the Com-
intern line and resolutions on the American question are no acci-
dents. You cannot separate the Comintern's decision of one year
from that of the previous year. Nor of the previous year from the
one preceding it. There is decisive continuity in the Comintern
policies and attitudes. This continuity is clearly noticeable in the
Comintern line towards the American Party.
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 31
FROM THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH PLENUMS OF THE ECCI.
And in the decision on the American Party question and the
present Party leadership, made at the Sixth Plenum of the Comin-
tern, in March, 1926, we find the following:
'•'The Enlarged Executive calls for all members of the Party to support
the Central Executive Committee, which in the short time of its existence, has
already succeeded in achieving substantial successes in the unification of the
Party. The Central Executive Committee has centralized, through energetic
Party reorganization, the Party, which up to recently, was divided into
eighteen language sections. The Party press also shows decided ideological
improvement. The Enlarged Executive finds correct the basic line on the trade-
union resolution adopted unanimously by both tendencies at the last Conven-
tion of the Workers (Communist) Party. The Enlarged Plenum of the
Executive Committee of the Comintern declares that the complete and un-
conditional abandonment of the factional struggle is a demand of the
Comintern and that everyone who violates this demand must reckon on the
most serious consequences for himself."
This estimate by the Comintern of the present Central Committee
only a few months after it assumed the leadership of the Party,
certainly does not look like lack of confidence.
And at the Seventh Plenum, at the close of 1926, the Communist
International estimated the Party's work under the leadership of
the Central Committee, in the following way:
"In spite of enormous difficulties, the Workers (Communist) Party has
achieved considerable successes in the sphere of mass work. It has led a number
of strikes, has made serious attempts to organize the unorganized, has pene-
trated into the miners' union. It must also be placed on record that the Party
has undergone an internal consolidation as a result of the considerable
diminution of factional struggles. These create the promise for further
growth of the influence of the Party among the masses."
At the same time, the Organization Department of the Executive
Committee of the Comintern estimated the Party's reorganization
as follows:
"Through the reorganization of the Party on the basis of factory and
street nuclei, the necessary organizational premises for a real Communist
Party have been created. . . . Despite the great difficulties which were even
greater in the United States than in other countries. . . . The reorganization
has been a great achievement for the Party."
The continuity of the Comintern's line towards the American
Party and its leadership, is shown in the following decision arrived
at by the American Commission of the Eighth Plenum, in its reso-
lution adopted by the Presidium:
32 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
THE DECISION OF THE EIGHTH PLENUM AND THE SUPPLEMENTARY
DECISION
"The Presidium recognizes that despite great objective difficulties the Party
has recently made important progress in many fields of activities.
"In the trade-union field the Party has achieved quite a number of suc-
cesses, expressed in the increasing influence of the left wing in important
unions (miners' union and needle . trades) and initiated and led big strikes.
The increasing influence of the Party has called forth an offensive of the
corrupt trade-union bureaucracy, as a result of which there are made far
reaching demands on the tactical adroitness of the leadership in the Com-
munist Party."
This resolution was followed by a supplementary decision of the
Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist Inter-
national adopted July 7, 1927:
"The Comintern is categorically against the sharpening of the factional
struggle and under no circumstances supports the statement of the 'National
Committee of the Opposition Bloc' The Comintern recognizes that in many
political questions the Ruthenberg group followed a more correct line in the
past than the Foster group. On the other hand, the Executive is of the opin-
ion that the Ruthenberg group had not understood how to estimate sufficiently
the full significance of the trade-union forces in the Party and that Foster
at that time was more correct on many trade-union questions.
"The line of the Comintern has been: On the whole Tor the political sup-
port of the Ruthenberg group and for bringing Foster nearer to the general
political line of the Ruthenberg group, at the same time, however, following
the course towards the correction of the trade-union tactic of the Ruthenberg
group on the line of Foster through cooperation in the Party leadership.
Now the previous political and trade-union differences have almost disap-
peared. The Comintern condemns most categorically every attempt towards
the sharpening of the situation in the Party, especially in the present objective
situation as exemplified by the formation of a National Committee of the
Opposition Bloc. The Comintern considers factionalism without political
differences as the worst offense against the Party."
FROM THE NINTH PLENUM TO THE SIXTH CONGRESS
Immediately after the Ninth Plenum, the Political Secretariat of
the Communist International, in a letter to the American Party, on
April 18, 1928, declared in part as follows:
"Amid an atmosphere of growing deep depression developing towards
crisis and more acute and aggressive policy on the part of American imperi-
alism at home and abroad, the Workers Party, which has already played a
leading role in the struggles and was able also to take prominent part in the
miners' struggle in Colorado, has now as its major task to mobilize and
organize the workers under its banner against the capitalist offensive and
against the reformist supporters of capitalism, namely, the American Federa-
tion of Labor and the Socialist Party of America."
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 33
Obviously while our Opposition has no confidence in the Central
Committee, the Comintern, though criticizing the errors and short-
comings of the Central Committee and giving it correct political
guidance, has continually expressed confidence in the main lirie of
the Party as formulated and applied by the present leadership.
And in the theses on "The International Situation and the Tasks
of the Communist International," presented to the Sixth World
Congress on behalf of the Russian delegation, we find the following
characterization of the American Party:
"The Workers (Communist) Party of America lias displayed . more lively
activity and has taken advantage of symptoms of crisis in American industry,
the growth of unemployment (due to the extremely rapid rise in the organic
composition of capital and in the technique of production). A number of
stubborn and fierce class battles (primarily the miners' strike) found in the
Communist Party a stalwart leader. The campaign against the execution of
Sacco and.Vanzetti was also conducted under the leadership of the Party,
within which is observed a weakening of the long-standing factional struggle.
While recording successes, however, reference must be made to a number of
right mistakes committed in regard to the Socialist Party, to the fact that the
Party has not with sufficient energy conducted work in the organization of
the unorganized and for the. organization of the Negro movement, and that
it does not conduct a sufficiently strong struggle against the predatory policy
of the United States in Latin America. These mistakes, however, cannot be
ascribed to the majority leadership alone.
"On the question of organizing a Labor Party, the Congress resolves:
That the Party concentrates on the work in the trade unions, on organizing
the unorganized, etc., and in this way lay the basis for the practical realiza-
tion of the slogan of a broad Labor Party organized from below.
"The most important task that confronts the Party is to put an end to the
factional strife which is not based on any serious differences on principles
and at the same time to increase the recruiting of workers into the Party
and to lend a decided impetus in the direction of promoting workers to
leading posts in the Party."
All other decisions of the Comintern subsequent to the Sixth
Congress, have been made on the basis of the line of the Sixth
World Congress towards the American Party, which line is the
basic, guiding point of the Comintern policy towards its American
section.
CHAPTER VII
THE AMERICAN PARTY AND THE SIXTH WORLD
CONGRESS
The Central Committee, the Party as a whole, the overwhelming
majority of the membership, have taken the decisions of the Sixth
34 PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
World Congress of the Communist International in earnest. The
fight against the right danger has been transformed by the Central
Committee from a struggle against right errors here and there to a
systematic energetic ideological and organizational campaign against
the right danger as the main danger in our Party. Already the
Central Committee has, practically speaking, eradicated the occur-
rence of wrong policies, of opportunist reactions, to the Socialist
Party. The fight against the trade-union bureaucracy, against the
American Federation of Labor, has been sharpened considerably.
The errors in anti-imperialist work, in Negro work, have also been
corrected in large part.
The question of a proletarianization of the Party's leadership and
its ranks, has been met with the most welcome determination on the
part of the membership and Party leadership in a most serious effort
to execute the line of the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern.
The same holds true in a lesser measure for the Party's cam-
paign against the imperialist war danger. Here there is very much
more to be done in order to come up to the mark set for us by the
criticism and evaluation by the Sixth World Congress.
PROGRESS IN ELIMINATION OF FACTIONALISM
The elimination of factionalism, the ending of the faction strug-
gle, for which there is no serious basis in principle today, has also
made considerable headway since the World Congress. Notice the
overwhelming support the Central Committee has in the member-
ship. Even if the Opposition should decide, as there are some signs
of some of its followers doing, to continue on its part factional
struggle after the convention, to flout the convention decisions, to
violate the decision of the World Congress to the effect that the
minority must absolutely subordinate itself to the majority, it will
find its factional hands paralyzed.
The Party, particularly after the convention, will not brook the
slightest factional act on the part of anyone in our ranks. The
convention will deal a death-blow to factionalism. Those of the
Opposition comrades, particularly some of those enumerated by
Comrade Browder in his article of January 29th, as the "nucleus of
the American Party leadership," had better now indelibly imprint
upon their minds that the National Convention will speak in de-
cisive terms against factional manipulations, factional campaigns —
underground or overground. The incoming Central Executive
Committee will be guided by the decisions of the convention.
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY 3<5
This is the determination of the Communist International. We
must put an end to factionalism. We must liquidate all the group-
ings in the Party. We must abolish the factions. In the closing
remarks of the writer at the last Party Plenum, there was made to
the comrades of the Opposition, a genuine, a sincere, offer for
unity. This offer has since then been repeated by the Political
Committee several times. This offer is repeated herein. We do
not invite the comrades of the Opposition to join the majority. We
do invite the comrades of the Opposition who are ready to accept
the Comintern decisions without reservations, who are not waiting
for changes in the line of the Comintern six months from now or
three months from today, who are not basing their policies for the
United States on divisions within the ranks of the leadership of any
other section of the Comintern, or in the Executive Committee of
the Comintern itself, to join with us, to help create a new majority
in the Party ; a more composite and more representative majority — a
Centra] Committee which will have even more support in the Party
than the present one has.
In the light of the brief historical review of our Party's develop-
ment and growth, from the angle of the Comintern's consistent
line towards the American Party, its problems, its tasks, its errors,
its shortcomings, and its leadership, one can clearly see that our
Party is today more prepared than hitherto to carry out successfully
two of the main tasks before us; one, the fight against the right
danger; two, the liquidation of factionalism and the abolition of
all factions and groups.
The unification of the Party is near completion. The Party will
develop with greater speed towards a mass Communist Party.
Since the 1927 convention, our Party has acted ever more fre-
quently as the ideological leader of basic sections of the American
proletariat and has increased its influence among the native workers.
We have had real achievements in the furriers and garment work-
ers' strike, Passaic, in the miners' struggle, the struggle in Colorado,
the textile workers' strikes in New Bedford, Fall River and Pater-
son. This is only a partial list of the battles in which our Party
has "for the first time appeared in the role of a Party of political
action, capable of linking up the economic struggles of the prole-
tariat and its political aims."
We may add that "the struggle for the organization of new
unions which the Party had to carry on under circumstances of
raging terror on the part of the avaricious bosses, of the powerful
36
PAGES FROM PARTY HISTORY
trusts, and the American Federation of Labor, is one of the best
pages in the history of the work of the Party during the last year."
Rut we must emphasize, however, that "the Party is now making
only its first steps in the new path. It is now only in the turning
point between the old and the new. It has not yet passed the turning
point."
With united ranks and under the leadership of the Communist
Internationa], in a spirit of true Bolshevik self-criticism, we will
speed up our progress towards becoming the decisive political force
in the country, the Party of the victorious American proletariat.
THE END
Just off the Press
THE
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS
Announce
the publication of the following:
THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION
by V. I. Lenin
(New and Revised Edition) .50
REMINISCENCES OF LENIN
by Clara Zetkin .35
ORGANIZATION OF A WORLD PARTY
by O. PlATNITSKY
(Second Edition) 25
PARIS ON THE BARRICADES
A story of the Commune of 1871
by George Spiro .50
RUTHENBERG, FIGHTER AND LEADER
by Jay Lovestone 05
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
IN THE COLONIES 15
COMMUNISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL
SITUATION 15
Only a limited number of these books are on hand.
RUSH YOUR ORDER
Send for our new 1929 catalogue, a complete list of all
publications handled by us.
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS
IS EAST 125TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11