The Militant Vol 1 -1928

Semi-Monthly Organ of the Opposition Group in the Workers (Communist) Party of America.

"It is necessary that every member of the Party should study calmly and with the greatest objectivity first the substance of the differences* of
opinion, and then the development of the struggles within the Party. Neither the pne nor the other can be done unless the documents of both
sides are published. He who takes somebody's word for it is a hopeless idiot, who can be disposed of with a skMoJa gesture of the hand." Lenin

MILITANT

VOL. I., No. 1.

NEW YORK. N. Y., NOVEMBER 15, 1928

PRICE 5 CENTS

For the Russian Opposition!

Against Opportunism and Bureaucracy in the Workers Communist Party of America !

A STATEMENT TO AMERICAN COMMUNISTS BY JAMES P. CANNON, MARTIN ABERN AND MAX SHACHTMAN.

1. In the view of the necessity of concentrating
the full attention of the Party on the election
campaign, we have refrained up till now from any
statement or step calculated to open a Party dis-
cussion on disputed questions until the election
campaign will have been ended and the pre-con-
vention discussion opened.

2. We have definite views on a scries of
fundamental questions vitally affecting the. whole
future of the Party and the Comintern which it
was our intention to bring before the Party in the
pre-convention discussion period.

3. The "discussion" of these questions con-
ducted up till now has not been a real discussion
since many of the documents — in our opinion
some of the most important political documents of
our time — have been suppressed and concealed

On October 27 the undersigned members of the Cen-
tral Executive Committee were declared expelled from the
Party for the views expressed in our statement to the
Political Committee on the same date, "which is printed
below. This action, taken by the Political Committee in
violation of the Party constitution, without even the
formality of a meeting of the Central Executive Com-
mittee to which we were elected by the Party convention,
was designed to deprive the Party members of the oppor-
tunity to hear our views and to insure themselves against
any opposition in the forthcoming Party discussion and
elections to the Party convention... Our views relate to
principle questions upon which it is not possible for rev-
olutionaries to remain silent... We proposed to defend
these views in the Party according to the rules for Party
discussion laid down in the Party constitution... The
abrogation of the Party constitution and the denial of
our rights as Party members compels us to take this
method of direct appeal to the Party members in order
to bring our position before them... We will continue to
expound our views in the columns of The Militant until
our Party rights are restored, — Editor.

mental correcteness of the document. It merely
demonstrates the- political instability of these
leaders which hampers the process of developing
an opposition to the present right wing leadership
and line of the Party on a principle basis. We
have no doubt that the supporters of the Opposi
tion who have regarded the struggle against the
right wing leadership as a principle question will
continue to adhere to this position despite the
vacillations and maneuvers of a section of the
leaders.

9. The problems of the American Party
organically bound up with the fundamental ques
tions confronting the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union and the Comintern, and cannot be
solved separately from them. The left wing of the
American Party, taking .shape in the principle

ire

from the parties of the Comintern or presented to "" ""' "*"" "* ™~"— • struggle against the right wing leadership .,f the

J.-..,. •_ _ -1.1..1 r- — tl ....„:*.. ...u^u u„. J-'arty (Lovestone-Pepper group) will go forward

them in garbled form. The opportunity which has
come to us in the recent period to read a number
of these documents, dealing with some of the most
disputed problems of the Comintern in the past
five years, together with the rapid confirmation of
their correctness by the whole course of events,
have shaped our views and convictions. We con-
sider it our revolutionary duty to defend these
views before the Party.

4. We had intended to undertake this task at
the opening of the Party discussion after the
election campaign. However, the arbitrary actions
already taken against us (our removal from all
positions on October 16) and the plain indica-
tions shown in the present hearing of the inten-
tion to take further organisational measures

Trotsky and Radek
Seriously 111

The most alarming reports have reached us concerning
the condition of health of Leon Trotsky and Karl Radek,
leaders of the Russian Opposition who were forcibly
exiled tq Turkestan, and Western Siberia respectively.
Both of them are severely stricken with malaria and unless
they arc given the most careful medical attention grave
concern is felt for their lives.

We have just received a message from Moscow, from
unquestionably reliable and authentic sources, which tells
of the repercussions among the Russian workers. Despite
the utmost official vigilance to hush up the story of
Trotsky's and Radek' s illness, the entire city of Moscow
woke up this morning (i.e., the day this letter was written)
to find the walls and buildings all over the city placarded
with appeals by the Opposition workers to the Moscow
proletariat to protest against' the scandalous treatment
accorded the exiled Bolsheviks in their illness.

The Volkswille, organ of the German , opposition, re-
ports a letter written by L. Sosnowski to the Moscow
Izvestia, official organ of the Soviet Government, in which
the seriousness of Trotsky's illness is confirmed by in-
formation received directly from Alma Ata, Trotsky's
place of exile. The banished revolutionst's malarial con-
dition has been rendered more serious by other complica-
tions. Sosnowski bitterly protests against the cold-blooded
cynicism of the present chairman of the Revolutionary
Military Council, Voroschilov, who made himself in-
famous with his f peering reply at a meeting when a work-
er asked about tkj •-' :- ■irbing reports regarding Trotsky's
health.

The life of Lenin's co-worker, one of the geniuses of
the revolution, lion-hearted Trotsky, is in imminent dan-
ger! The condition of Comrade Radek is also serious.
Should the official neglect that is being substituted for
comradely aid prove fatal to these revolutionary giants,
their blood will be upon the heads of those who persecute
them and chose who do not protest.

Communist workers of America:

Defend the lives of Trotsky and Radek!

Demand their return to Moscow and the provision of
the best- medical aid in their illness!

An end to the persecution of the fighters for Bolshev-
ism!

and to begin a public campaign against us in
the Party press "make it necessary to' state our
position without further delay. It must be made
clear to the Party that the measures are being
taken against us solely because of our political
views. These views must be presented to the Party
as they really are.

5. Wc present them here in outline form and
will riaboT»te»nt'hcrn >r.ore "fatty in.- -our jtppcal.-tn:
the Central Executive Committee against the
actions taken by the Polcom.

6. Se stand on the, main line of the document
entitled "The Right Danger in the American
Party" (excepting certain erroneous formulations
dealing with the world position and role of Amer-
ican imperialism), presented to the Sixth World
Congress of the Comintern by the delegation of
the Opposition, in the drafting of which we active-
ly participated. As set forth in this document, we
believe that the present leadership of the Party,
mechanically imposed upon the Party by the E. C.
C. I. against the will of the membership, is a con-
sciously developing right wing, whose course and
actions are all in the direction of undermining,
the position of the Party in the class struggle. Its
activities since the presentation of our document
on "The Right Danger in the American Party" to
the "World Congress, have confirmed and not re-
futed this estimate. The irresponsible adventurism,
the factional degeneration and bureaucratic cor-
ruption of the Lovestone group leadership are an
organic part of its fundamental opportunist char-'
acta.

7. The latest decision of the secretariat of the
E. C. C. I. which undertakes to dismiss a whole
series of principle questions raised in our indict-
ment of the Party leadership with a formal motion,
giving no answer whatesocver to the burning
questions of the Party in all fields of the class
struggle, serves only to strengthen the mechanical
stranglehold of the right wing leadership upon
our Party. This bureaucratic secretarial method of
dealing with disputed principle questions must be
emphatically rejected by the Party both in form
and content, since they have nothing in common
with Lenin's teaching regarding the ideological
leadership of all Communist Parties by the Comin-
tern and the unremitting struggle against opport-
unism on all fronts.

8. The present attempt of some of the leaders
of the Foster-Bittelman group who signed the doc-
ument on the "Right Danger" to abandon that
platform, to moderate the struggle against the
Lovestone-Pepper right wing, and to effect a polit-
ical coalescence with them in order to direct their
attack against those who remain true to that plat-
form and develop its logical and inevitabile inter-
national implications, in no way alters the funda-

only insofar, as jt recognises the necessity of a
struggle against the right danger on an ' interna-
tional scale and links up its fights in the American
Party with the Bolshevik fight for the fundamental
tenets of Leninism in the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union and in the Comintern.

10. The Opposition in the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union led by L. D. Trotsky has been
fighting for the unity of the Comintern and all
its sections on the 'basis of the victory of Leninism.
The correctness of the position taken by- the Rus-
sian Opposition over a period of five years of
struggle has been fully confirmed by event*.'

a) The struggle led by Trotsky since 1923 for
Party democracy and against bureaucratism as the

M. Spector Expelled
In Canada

Maurice Spector, member of the Executive Committee
of the Communist International has just been suspended
from the Communist Party of Canada for his refusal to
endorse the expulsion of Cannon, Abern and Shachtmart
from the Communist Patty of America and for his state-
ment defending his position and supporting our demand
for the publication of the suppressed documents of the
Russian Opposition. His statement, a scathing arraign-
ment of the bureaucratic regime, will be printed in the
next number of The Militant.

The. great seriousness for the entire Communist move-
ment of North America of the action taken against com-
rade Spector will be realized when it is pointed out that
he was unanimously elected to the Executive Committee of
the Communist International at the Sixth World Congress
on the nomination of the Canadian delegation. ' He has
been the Chairman of the Canadian Party for many years
and the editor of the Party organs, the Canadian Worker
and the Canadian Labor Monthly. The suspension of
comrade Spector, the political leader of the Canadian
Party since its formation, is fully in line with that course
of desperate bureaucrats on an international scale who are
unable to defend themselves in open discussion and whose
"leadership" depends on an abrogation of tht democratic
rights of the party members.

We send our wannest greetings to our fellow-fighter in
the Canadian Communist Party and express the confi-
dence that his fight against our expulsion will be met
with reciprocal support from the proletarian Communists
in the ranks of our party. Our cause is international and
the Communist militants of all countries must fight to-
gether for it.

As we go to press word comes also of expulsion pro-
ceedings beginning against other members of the Com-
munist Party of America and the the Y. W. L.
who oppose our expulsion. It is being attempted to carry
out this campaign of disruption behind a curtain of silence
in the official party press. But this game will not suc-
ceed. The real facts about the attempt to silence the
voice of Communist workers by expulsion, which the
party bureaucrats have learned from Sigman and Lewis,
will be revealed in the next number of The Militant.
The expulsion of the editors of^The Militant is dealt with
on another page of this issue.

i

■■m

Page

TH E MILITANT

November 15, 1928.

pressure oi another class upon the Party of the
proletariat, -was absolutely correct then and is even
more so now. The adoption of this position by
Zinoviev, Karaenev and others in 1926, and the
attempt of Stalin to adopt it now, demonstrates
the tremendous pressure of class forces which im-
pel the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to
this platform. The struggle for Party democracy,
against bureaucratism and for a regime of genuine
Leninist self-criticism are burning questions now
for every Party and for the Comintern- as a whole.
b) The necessity for a more relentless struggle
against the Kulai and the Nepman— for an orient'
ation exclusively upon the workers and hired
hands, united with the village poor and lower
peasantry and in alliance with the middle
peasantry — proclaimed by the Opposition, becomes
clearer every day. The trend of events and the
irresistible' pressure of class forces is already driv-
ing a deep cleavage in the leadership of the Com-
munist ?arty of the Soviet Union, and is forcing
the Stalin Group to struggle against the right wing
(RyJkov, etc.) with other elements (Bucharin)
vacillating between the two. The platform of the
Russian Opposition, prepared for the Fifteenth
Congress of the C P. S. U., indicates the revol-
utionary policy for the present situation in Soviet
Union. The prediction and warning contained in
this .platform against the inevitable growth and
aggressiveness of a genuine right wing in the
Party (Rykoy, Tomsky, etc.), has been precisely
confirmed in the intervening period, particularly
in recent months. The activities of this right wing,
nave already necessitated organizational meas-
ures in. the Moscow a^nd other organizations
of the Party — a proof of the awakening of the
proletarian masses of the Party to this danger.
The '"left" course of the Stalin group in the
direction of a struggle against the right dangers,
for Party democracy and self-criticism, against the
bureaucrats, the Nepmen and the Kulaks, can be-
come a real left course only insofar as it aban-
dons zig-zag movements, adopts the whole plat-
form of the Opposition, and reinstates the tested
Bolshevik fighters, who have been expelled, to
their rightful places in the Party.

c) The attempts to revise the basic Marxist-
Leninist doctrine with the spurious theory of
"socialism in one country" have been rightly resist-
ed by the Opposition led by Trotsky. A number
of revisionist and opportunist errors in various
fields of Comintern activity and its ideological life
in general have proceeded from this false theory.
To this in part at least can be traced the false line
in the Chinese revolution, the debacle of the
Anglo-Russian Committee, the alarming and un-
precedented growth of bureaucratism in the
Comintern, an incorrect attitude and policy in the
Soviet Union, etc., etc. This new "theory" is
bound up with an overemphasis on the power and
duration of the temporary stabilization of capital-
ism. Herein lies the true source of pessimism re-
garding the development of the proletarian world
revolution, One of the principle duties of every
Communist in every Party of the Comintern is to
fight along with the Opposition for the teachings
of Marx, Engels and Lenin on this basic question.
d) The Opposition was absolutely correct
when it demanded the immediate rupture of the
Anglo-Russian Committee and the concentration
of all the fire of the Comintern and the British
Party upon the leaders of the British Trade Union
General Council (Purcell, Hicks and Co.) im-
mediately after the betrayal of the general strike.
The maintenance of the Anglo-Russian Committee
after that event did not serve as a bridge to the
British masses but as a partial shield of the
traitorous leaders from the fire of the Communists.
e) Rarely before in history has a Marxist-Lenin-
ist appraisal and forecast been so completely and
swiftly confirmed as in the case of the Opposition
theses and proposals (Trotsky, Zinoviev) on the
problems and tasks of the Chinese revolution. The
line of the E. C. C. I., formulated by Stalin, Buch-
arin, Martynov, etc., and the repection of the pro"
posals oi the Opposition, which were suppressed
and concealed from the Parties of the Comintern,
have brought catastrophic results and hampered
the genine development of the Communist Party
of China and the revolutionary- democratic dicta-
torship of the workers and peasants. In view of

PAMPHUETS COMING

The Editors of The Militant are undertaking the task of
publishing all the suppressed documents of the Russian
Opposition, a treasure of Leninist literature, in pamphlet
f on* as well as serially in The Militant. Your help is
needed in this revolutionary-work Follow the example of
a group of Communist workers in New York who are
pledging a regular amount weekly.

its world ^historical importance, a real discussion
of the problems of the Chinese revolution, with'
all the documents being made available, is imper-
ative for all Parties of the Comintern. The pro-
hibition of this discussion must be broken down,
the truth must be told and the eaormous errors ex-
posed down to their roots. Only in this way can
the great lesisons of the Chinese revolution be
learned by the parties of the Comintern.

11. We demand the publication of all the
documents of the Russian Opposition without
which the Party members do not and cannot know
the essential issues of the struggle and cannot form
intelligent opinions in regard to them. The dis-
cussion of these issues heretofore has been conduct-
ed in an atmosphere, of prejudice, misrepresenta-
tion, terrorism, outlawing of all thought- and in-
quiry, the substitution of official say-so for the
study of documents and facts on disputed
questions. All this has been part of a campaign of
unparalleled slander against Trotsky who, ofter
Lenin, was the outstanding leader of the Russian
revolution and the Comintern, and was accom-
panied by the falsification of the history of the rev-
olution itself.

12. We intend, at the coming Plenum of the
Central Executive Committee, to propose that our
Party. shall take the initiative in demanding the
return from exile and the re-instatement into the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union with full
rights, of Trotsky and the other imprisoned and
exiled members of the Russian Opposition. Viol-
ence and persecution against counter-revolution-
aries is a revolutionary duty; violence and per-
secution against tried and loyal Bolsheviks is a
crime.

13. The consolidation of the Opposition in the
American Party, which logically and inevitably
merges with the path of the Opposition in the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union led by
Trotsky, has developed in the struggle against the
right danger. The pitiful attempt to characterize
this Opposition as a "right" tendency, related to
non-Communist elements such as Lore who have
been fighting the Party from the right, and anti-
Communist elements like Salutsky, who have gone
completely over to the side of the labor lieutenants
of capitalism, does not in the least correspond with
political reality and is designed to cover the pro-
gressive drift of the Party leadership to the right.
On the contrary, the attempts to exclude us from
responsible Party work, and even from the Party
itself, along with the proletarian Communists who
support us, while at the same time the control of
the Party apparatus and the Party leadership in
such unions as the needle trades consolidates more
firmly in the hands of the opportunists, who fight
their Communist-worker critics with expulsion and
physical violence — al this can only accelerate the
rapprochement between the right wing leadership
of the Party and right wing and petty-bourgeois
elements now out-side the Party.

14. The Lovestone group leadership, by its
opportunist political outlook, its petty-bourgeois
origin, its corrupt factionalism, its careerism and
adventurism in the class struggle, is the greatest
menace to the Party. Its mechanical grip on the
apparatus of the Party grows steadily tighter and
chokes out is inner life. Capable, experienced and
trustworthy comrades are one by one removed
from responsible posts and replaced by faction
agents, incompetents, upstarts, unknown and inex-
perienced in any serious work in the class struggle.
The Party itself, the mass work and the mass or-
ganizations under the influence and direction of
the Party, are thereby undermined.

16. By its whole character the Lovestone lead-
ership is the "logical" American banner-bearer of
the demogogic and unscrupulous international
campaign against the leaders of the Russian Op-
position. The aspirations of certain former leaders
of the Opposition in the American Party to grasp
this banner for themselves are pathetically futile.
The hopes of the Foster group to escape thereby
the factional persecution of the Lovestone group
and to secure their organizational positions can
succeed only insofar as they surrender their "former
opposition standpoint. The whole course of the
Lovestone group, which has no roots in the labor
movement, is toward a monopoly of the Party ap-
paratus and cannot be otherwise.

17. We declare our intention to appeal to the
Plenum of the Central Executive Committee to
reverse the action of the Polcom against us, which
is motivated by neither principle foundation nor
Party interest, and is the result purely of factional
considerations and bureaucratic fear of discussion
and criticism.

1 8. The arbitrary decisions made against us
cannot in the slightest degree change our position
as Communists, since the Party we helped' to found
and build is our Party. Reserving the right to
express our viewpoint and opinion on these dis-
puted, questions, we will continue to adhere to the
discipline and decisions of the Party as heretofore.
Under all circumstances we will continue to live
with the Party and work for its future.

19. We demand that simultaneously with the
announcement of the decision of the Polcom on
the outcome of this hearing, our statement shall
be given to the Party in the same manner.

JAMES P. CANNON, (Member of the Pol-
itical Committee and C.E.C.).
MARTIN ABERN, (Member of the C.E.C.)
MAX SHACHTMAN, (Alternate to the
C.E.C).

Trade Union (Questions

The past year has witnessed a sharp turn in the
tactics of the party and the left wing in the direc-
tion of organizing the unorganized and forming
new unions. The sharpening of the class struggle
and the crisis in the labor movement created the
conditions for this turn and the Party was not
ahead of the situation, but lagged behind it. This
arose from the natural conservatism of the Party
leadership and its inability to understand the pro-
cesses going on in the working class and in the
labor movement. It was the hammering of the
Opposition and the pressure of the RJ.L-U. which
compelled the formal adoption of the new line —
and this only after many favorable opportunities
had been lost.

How has this new line been carried out? In
the recent months the question of the new trade
union policy passed over from the field of debate
to the field of practice. The forces of the Party
and the left wing have gone through some gruel-
ling battles, and in at least three industries — Coal
mining, Textile and Needle Trades — definite, ex-
perience in the formation of new unions has been
gained. The Communists and left wing workers
again proved themselves to be the leading dynamic
force in the labor movement in these struggles.

What, are the results and lessons of this ex-
perience, the successes and the errors? One will
seek in vain to find answers to these questions
in the Party press or, for that matter, to find suf-
ficient authentic information recorded there from
which deductions could be made.

It is time now to review the experience and draw
some necessary conclusions for the trade union
work of the next future. Such indeed is the para-
mount task of the Party. In order to do this it will
be necessary to proceed from an understanding of
the situation as it actually exists; to know the sober
facts which have been hidden behind the blatant
press-agentry; to lay bare the enormous errors
(and worse) of the Party leadership which have
been covered up by optimistic official reports.

The document on tile "Right Danger -in the
American Party," in the trade union section (writ-
ten by Foster) which is printed in this issue of
The Militant, speaks warningly of the harmful
consequences which ensue when irresponsible dil-
lettantes and opportunist faction-mongers gain con-
trol and direction of mass work. This warning,
fraught with the gravest consequences for the
future of the movement, is written in blazing
letters in the experience of the past year, and
particularly the past six months, of the Party's
trade union work. The longer this lesson remains
unlearned the greater the prices to be paid for the
knowledge.

In forthcoming issues of the Militant — while, we
are denied our rights to expression in the Party
press — we intend to deal at length with the ques-
tion of the Party trade union policy and work;
and to do so not only from a general standpoint,
but also from the standpoint of the concrete ex-
perience and the actual facts connected with it — -
and with specific and particular reference to the
Miners', Textile and Needle Trades' Unions.

THE MILITANT

Published twice a month by the Opposition Group ifi the

Workers (Communist) Party of America
P.O. Box 120 Madisorv Square Station — New York, N.Y,

Subscription rate: $1.00 per year. Foreign, $1.50
5c per copy Bundle rates, 3c per copy.

Editor Associate Editors

James P. Cannon Martin Abem

Phone: Gramercy 3411 Max Sfeachtman

A

**.

Ttfovember 1?, 1928,

THE MILITANT

Page 3

Concerning Our Expulsion :

A Letter to a Comrade
hy yames P. Cannon

Dear Comrade: —

We were very glad to receive your letter and
to hear of your reaction against our expulsion and
your wish to receive more information and advice
as to procedure. Enough of such letter.s have. al-
ready been received to make it clear that the
attempt to dispose of the principle questions we
have raised by the simple mechanical expedient of
our expulsion from the Party will meet with resist-
ance from the worker Communists in the ranks.

Your statement that our expulsion took you by
surprise and that the comrades there want to know
more than they can learn from the official cominu
nications is echoed in other letters also, and quite
naturally .s. Another letter which came today from
a Communist coal miner says, "At the beginning
I was tremendously surprised. The entire matter
hit me so hard that I don't know whether I have
come back to earth or not." The people who
gamble -with the proletarian movement, regard the
expulsion of loyal fighters for the Party as a clever
"trick,'" a quick and easy solution of troublesome
questions. The rank and file militants and the
serious revolutionaries who have built the move-
ment and stood loyally by it in its hardest days
will take another view in exact proportion as they
learn the facts and understand the disruptive con-
sequences of this criminal act. Our foremost task
is to make these facts known to the Party and
we will endeavor to do this at all cost.

The "suddenness" with which the whole issue
has burst upon the Party was unavoidable on our
part. The Polcom majority declared us expelled
from the Party for our .views without even wait-
ing for the Plenum of the Central Executive Com-
mittee, before the party members had the slightest
inkling of the situation and before we had the
opportunity to inform them. Their object was to
confront the Party members with our expulsion
as an accomplished fact and then to terrorize them
into an endorsement of it before the slightest in-
formation is in their hands. They expelled us,
as they have expelled many good Communists be-
fore, in order to deprive us of the possibility of
speaking to the Party as Party members. Then
they tell the Party it has no right to listen to us
because we are "not members of the Party." Such
shallow trickery can be based only on the most
profound contempt for the intelligence of the rank
and file of the Party. To allow such methods to
succeed would be to give the power of self-per-
petuation to any clique which might gain control
of the apparatus and tOvreduce the principle of
democratic centralism to a fiction. According-
to such procedure the fact of expulsion settles the
question. But in the absence of any preliminary
discussion, the Party can decide the question wise-
ly and responsibly only if it knows why the expul-
sion took place and what the expelled members
have to say. A Party member who does not de-
mand that right, who keeps quiet, or who votes
to endorse this act of bureaucratic disruption for
fear of expulsion is not acting like an upstaading
Communist whose vote meSns understainding and
conviction.

"IJow does it happen that you became a sup-
porter of the Russian Opposition " and insist so
categorically on the right to defend ft — even up
to the point of temporary expulsion from the
Party?" This is the question asked by many com-
rades as well as by you. "The question is five
years old, Trotsky is expelled arid the questions
are settled — why bring it up again?" Well, it is
true that the question is old, but it is by no means
"settled" and cannot be settled on the present
basis. This is the answer. We are late in learn-
ing the truth, late with the performance of our
international duty, but that is by no means entirely,
or eten mainly, our fault. It was possible for us
to secure adequate information and judge for our-
selves only recently.

We do not demand or expect anyone to accept
our views on our say-so. AH we ask of those who
have stood closest to us in the past, and of the
broad circles of the Party which are being stirred
to a new interest in the question by our stand and
our expulsion, is that they study the question
honestly asnd objectively on the basis of the ma-
terial which we will provide. Fro-n honest study
of the material wilt come conviction as was the
oase with- us. We have no doubt, either, that they
will defend these cottvictiorts as we do, regardless
of personal conseq&efteesi because the very essence
of th:e matter is tfie overshadowinj importance of

Editors' Note: — The following letter was written to an
active party worker in reply" to a letter from him in
which he raised a number of questions similar to those
dealt with in numerous other letters from comrades in
various parts of the country who have asked information
and advice on the question of our expulsion from the
party and the issues connected with it.

the issues involved.

The wisdom of our action in presenting a clear
and direct statement of our position was ques-
tioned; but it seems quite clear that its correctness
has already been established. The Party needed
an alarm bell; it needed an awakening from the
stupor of factional intrigue over small questions.
The Party needs plain speech now above every-
thing. Strategy, of course, is not to be excluded
in such a fight, but it must be strictly subordinated
to the major task of telling the truth and stimulat-
ing the Party members to demand the truth. This
is the real duty of leaders now. It is from this
standpoint, in our opinion, that you and the otheir
leading comrades must decide your course— from
the standpoint of your responsibility as leaders to
the Party and to the rank and file comrades who
have confidence in you and look to you for
guidance.

It is true that the raising of the fundamental
questions of Bolshevism which have arisen on an
international scale over a period of five years plays
havoc with second-rate and tenth-rate questions of
controversy and the group which concerns itself
exclusively with them. The fate of the "loyal"
Opposition to Lovestone and Pepper is indeed a
sad one. But the fate of all groups which base
themselves on purely local or national issues can-
not be otherwise when the larger questions are
"brought up." At the Chicago D.E.C. meeting
the majority has already demanded "united sup-
port" of the C.E.C. in the fight against "Trotsky-
ism." This only confirms what we predicted from
the first. The group which wants to fight "Trot-
skyism" and at the same time wants to fight the
Lovestone-Pepper group which has a copyright on
that fight and -makes its political living that way;
the group which does not know from one day to
another where the greatest "danger" lies and
where to direct its blows, will naturally and very
quickly demonstrate its complete bankruptcy.
There is no place for it. Its elimination from the
scene proceeds inevitably from the whole situation:

We wish to say a few words regarding the atti-
tude of those comrades who seriously and from
their own knowledge and conviction count. Trot-
sky's position, prior to 1917 against him. Such an
attitude is in no way contradictory to ours. We
know that Trotsky and Lenin had differences in
the pre-revolutionary struggle and we know that
Bolshevism took shape and the Comintern was
founded on the basis of Lenin's doctrine to which
Trotsky came over. Do we not know also that
Trotsky from 1917 fought side by side with Lenin
and that even when Trotsky differed with him
afterward Lenin never allowed a campaign against
him, but on the contrary placed the greatest con-
fidence in him and helped to elevate him to the
highest positions? To our own knowledge he
spoke at the Fourth jCongress of the Comintern as
the outstanding leader (next to Lenin) and he
made the main report. We know that he had less
differences with Lenin after 1917 than any one
of the other leaders, although they do not tell us
that in the official information.

We have not the slightest doubt, from a study
of all the material dealing with the period of 1917-
1928 that we have been able to secure, that "Trot-
skyism" as a political tendency in conflict with
Leninism was liquidated prior to the October rev-
olution. The disputes of 20 years ago are made
the center of the fight against Trotsky in recent
years only because his opponents and defamers
are not able to stand up against him on the actual
merits of the present controversies. What is the
great historic significance of the action of Zinoviev
and Kamenev in uniting with Trotsky in 1926 but
an acknowledgement that the campaign against
"Trotskyism" in 1923-4-5 had been a false one?
Zinoviev, who above all others "educated" us in
this campaign said so in so many words.

The struggle of the past five years has resolved
around the Wing issues. of the present period. It
is our absolute conviction, based on the most ob-
jective study of all material wt could secure — and

carried on in the face of a previous prejudice

that .on all of these basic questions of the period the

questions around which the whole life and future
of the International Communist movement revolve
— -Trotsky has been in the main correct and the
true defender of Leninism.

Regarding our expulsion and the -expulsion of
others which is already being prepared^ a few words
should be said. The great significance and un-
bounded consequences of such criminal acts by the
Political Committee cannot be overestimated and
no kind of diplomacy or expediency will be able
to subordinate such an issue. It will inevitably rise
up and confront the Party at every turn. The
expulsion, for their views alone, of, loyal Com-,
munists, founders of the Party, with honorable
records of 15-20 years of activity: — in contradistinc-
tion to the shady records of many of those who
expelled us — cannot be covered up or minimized
by any kind of slander. For we are revolutionaries
who will fight for our right to belong to the Party
and will not let anything tear us away from it.
The Polcom "settled" the question by summarily
expelling us, but it will arise again immediately
after the election campaign when others will de-
mand our reinstatement and are also expelled.

Expulsion is a dangerous fire to play with in a
Party which has all too few forces of the ktrid
that are being expelled, forces loyal to the Party
and working for its future, who have coptribiite*!
not a little in building the Party and establishing
its prestige among the workers. As the struggle
continues and our material is made available t*
more and more Party members the issue will grow
more acute. The wholesale expulsion of prole-
tarian fighters while the petty- bourgeois careerists
and adventurers are attracted and drawn to the
center — this is the only possible logic of the expul-
sion course initiated by the Polcom.

We do not believe it is in principle possible for
any comrade who disagrees with such a course and
understands its unavoidable consequences to give
any kind of support to our expulsion. To say that
a protest against our expulsion can be made only if
one agrees with the position of the Russian Op-
position on all points seems to us to be putting the
question upside down It would be more correct
to say that the expulsion can be endorsed only if
one is convinced that the position is wrong on all
important points and that we have become enemies
of the Party, which no Communist adult believes.

We surely intend to advise a certain tactical line
to some of the rank and file comrades to avoid
expulsion without repudiating their, principles, but
leaders to whom the whole Party is looking are
duty-bound to speak clearly and tell the Party just
what they think, even if it is not a complete sup-
port of one position or the other. What i6 wrong
about voting against expulsion when one does not
know the facts and has not had sufficient oppor-
tunity to adopt a definite, position one way or the
other? What kind of an atmosphere Is it in the
Party, what form of Party democratic rights exist,
when members feel compelled to -vote one way or
the other on the spot without 'any real knowledge
of their own? A Party uprising against this whole
system will be one of the most fruitful results of
our fight.

It is to be expected that those who deprived us
of all rights to defend our views in the normal
Party way will now raise a great hue and cry be-
cause we take other means of bringing our por-
tion to the Party membership. They pervert the
great Leninist principle of discipline based on a
Correct revolutionary policy into an. instrument f br
shutting the mouth of the loyal Party member and
protecting their opportunist policies and disloyal
acts from any real criticism and exposure. Such
bureaucratic machinations have nothing in cohl-
mon with Leninist organization principles. We
would be unworthy of the name of revolutionist*
if we allowed our views to be suppressed by suck
sophistical methods.

It is only miserable bureaucrats and philistines
who can keep silent about their views on principle
questions. Revolutionaries advocate them. The
issues of the Russian Opposition, and their indiS-
soluble connection with our own specific problems
will be discussed by the Party in spite of all A«d
it is our task to see to it that this is not a one-sided
discussion, or rather distortion, of the questions,
but a presentation of them to the Party as they
really are. The regeneration of the Party and
the reconstitution of its leadership on a proletarian
Communist basis -will proceed from this.
Yours fraternally,

J. P. CANNON.

Page 4

THE MILITANT

November If, 1928.

THE DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE

THE draft program, that is, the most vital
document which is to determine the work of
the Comintern for many years to come, has been
published only a few weeks prior to the convoca'
tioh of the Congress, * 1 ich is being held f >.:.•
years after the Fifth Congress. No reference can
Wimade to the fact that the first draft was
published prioi. to the Fifth Congress, precisely
for the reason that it was done several years ago.
The second draft differs from the first in structure
and, endeavors to sum up the -developments of
recent years. To pass this draft at the Sixth Con-
gress, a draft which bears obvious traces of hur-
ried, and even careless work, without a prelim'
inary serious and scientific criticism in the press,
cr an extensive discussion in all Parties affiliated
■with the Comintern would be a very careless and
precipitate act.

■ Til the few days we had at our disposal between
the receipt' of the draft and the dispatch of this
fetter ;■ we could' deal only with some of the most
vital • problems which must be eludidated in the
ffiogram.

A' series of most important ideas of the draft
which 'perhaps are less burning today but may be-
come ;of extraordinary importance tomorrow, we
are compelled, owing to the lack of time, to leave
entirely- "'without consideration. Suffice it to say
Vie could not even receive the first draft program
and we had to rely on our memory in dealing
with it, as in two or three other cases. It stands
to reason that all quotations have been taken from
the:-:<3riginals after careful examination.

r A Program of International Revolution

or a Program of Socialism

in One Country.

The chief question on the agenda of the Sixth
.Congress is the adoption of the program. The
nature of the program can for a long time deter-
mine and make up the physiognomy of the Inter-
•Rational. The significance of a program is not
so much in the way it formulates the chief theoret-
ical ideas, wh^ch in. thie final analysis is merely a
$u<*Ktion of ^codification," namely a question of
Jtayjrig, down in a concise form the concrete truths
and .generalisations .which have been definitely
and firmly obtained; it is much more a question
of summarizing the world economic and political
experiences of the recent period, and particularly
the revolutionary struggles of the last five years
which were so rich in events and mistakes. The
fate of the Communist International in the course
of the coming years depends in the literal sense
-■jpf,, the term on how these events, mistakes and
(differences are understood and evaluated in the
^program:

1.— GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE
PROGRAM

In pur epoch which is an imperialist epoch, i. e.,
an., epoch of WORLD economics and WORLD
.pplitics,, under the hegemony of finance capitalism,
^jjot a, single national Communist Party can build
jits^ program wholly or chiefly on the conditions
, and tendencies, of national develpment, This fully
tolds good also for the Party that holds sway in
tb,e U. S. S. R. The death knell for national pro-
grams was definitely sounded on August 4, 1914.
The. revolutionary Party of the proletariat can
rely only on an international program correspond-
ing, to" the nature of „th,e present epoch as an epoch
of the apex and destruction of capitalism. An in-
ternational .Communist program is by no means a
summary of national programs or of their common
features* An international program is based direct-
ly on, an analysis of the conditions and tendencies
of" 'the world economic and world political system
as, a whole with all its points of contact and antag-
onism, i. e., with all the antagonistic inter-
dependence of its parts. In the present epoch the
national orientation of the proletariat must and
Can,, to a larger extend than in the past, be based
only on a world orientation, and not vice versa.
Therein lies the basic and fundamental difference
Between the Communist International and all
Shades of national socialism.

B?sed on this, we wrote in January of this year
the following:

"It is necessary to start to draw up a Program of
the Comintern (Bucharin's program is a bad pro-
gram of a national section of the Comintern-; it is
riot a program of a world Communist Party)." —
(Pravda, January 25, 1928).

We have constantly insisted on this On the
same grounds since 1923-1924 when the problem
of the United States ff America arose in its full
scope as a problem of WORLD and, in the most
direct sense of the word, EUROPEAN POLICY.

In boosting the new draft program Pravda said
that a Communist program.

"differs fundamentally from the program of interna-
tional Social Democracy not only by the substance of
its main ideas, but by the characteristic international-
ism of its construction."; — (Pravda, May 29, 1928).

In this rather indefinite formulation is expressed
the idea which we have outlined above and which
was formerly stubbornly rejected. One can only
welcome the departure from the first draft pro-
gram presented by Bucharin which, properly
speaking, did not rouse any serious exchange of"
opinion as it did not give enough cause for such.
While the first draft gave a vague schematic,
reflection of the development of one abstract
country toward Socialism, the new draft is trying,
insistently and without success as we will unfor-
tunately see, to take world economy as a whole
as its starting point in determining the fate of its
individual parts.

Linking up countries and continents of various
stages of development in a system of mutual
dependence and antagonism, levelling out the state
of their development and at the same time enlarg-
ing the differences between them and irreconcil-
ably setting up one country against the other,
world economy has become a mighty reality which
holds sway over the economy of individual coun-
tries and continents. It is this basic fact that
makes the very idea of a world Communist Party
a reality. Bringing world economy as a whole to
the highest possible phase of development on the
basis of private property, imperialism, as the
draft absolutely correctly states in its introduc-
tions :

"intensifies the contradiction between the growth of
the productive forces of world economy and national
State barriers."

Without fully understanding the meaning of
this, which has for the first time been vividly
revealed to humanity in the last imperialist war,
not a step can be made in dealing with the big
questions of world politics and world revolutionary
struggles.

One would only have to welcome the bold re-
placement of the axis of the program in the new
draft? were it not for the fact that in the effort to
conciliate this, the only correct position, with
tendencies of an entirely opposing character, the
draft has become an arena containing great con-
tradictions which undermine the fundamental sig-
nificance of the new statement of principles.

2. THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE

To characterise the first, fortunately discarded
draft, it will suffice to say that, so far as we re-
member, it did not even mention the United
States of America. The cardinal problems of the
imperialist epoch which, by dint of the very
nature of the epoch, must be taken not only in
their abstract theoretical but also in their material
and historical aspect, were dissolved in the . first
draft into a lifeless outline of a capitalist country
"in general." However,, the new draft, and this
of course is a great step forward, states that "the
economic center of the world has shifted to the
United States of America"; that "the 'Dollar
Republic 1 has become the exploiter of all coun-
tries"; that the United States "has already won
world hegemony for itself," and finally that the
competition (in the draft it is wrongly stated "con-
flict") between United States and European
capitalism, primarily British capitalism, "is be-
coming the pivot in the world conflicts." This
has already become absolutely obvious, and a pro-
gram which would not contain a clear and exact
definition of these main facts and features of the
world situation would not be a program of an
international revolutionary Party.

Unfortunately the main facts and tendencies of
the international development of the new epoch
indicated above are mentioned in the text of the
draft, grafted on to it, so to say, in the way of
theoretical back-writing without having any inter-
contact with the rest of the structure and without
leading to any perspective of strategical deduct-
ions.

The NEW role of America in Europe since the
capitulation of the Communist Party of Germany

and the defeat of the German proletariat in 1923,
has been entirely left out of consideration. It has
not been made clear that the period of "stabiliz-
ation," "normalization," and "pacification" Of Eu-
rope including the "regeneration" of Social Demo-
cracy, has developed in close material and
ideological connection with the first steps of
American intervention in European affairs.

Furthermore, it has not been made clear that
the inevitable further development of American
expansion, the contraction of the markets of
European capitalism, including the . European
market itself, entails the greatest military, economic
and revolutionary disturbances such as will leave
all disturbances of the past in the shade.

It has not been made clear that the inevitable
further onslaught of the United States will place
capitalist Europe on a constantly more limited
ration in world economy which, of course, does
not involve a mitigation, but on the contrary, a
monstrous sharpening of the inter-State relations
in Europe with furious paroxysms of military
conflicts, because States as well as classes, are even
more frantically fighting for a hunger ration, nay,
a diminishing ration, than for a lavish and growing
ration.

In the .draft it has not been made clear that the
internal chaos of the State antagonisms of Europe
render hopeless a more or less serious and success-
ful resistance to the constantly more centralized
North American Republic and that the over-
coming of the European chaos in the form of the
Soviet United States of Europe is one of the first
tasks of the proletarian revolution, which in not
the least degree as a result precisely of State bar-
riers, is much closer in Europe than in America
and which will therefore most likely have to be
defended from the North American bourgeoisie.

On the other hand it has been left entirely un-
mentioned — and this is not the least important
phase of the same world problem — that it is
precisely the international strength of thi United
Staths and its unbridled expansion resulting from
it, that compels it to include powder magazines
throughout the world among the foundations of its
structure — the antagonisms between the east and
west, the class struggle in Old Europe, uprisings of
the colonial masses, wars and revolution. This on
jhe one hand transforms United States capitalism
into the basic counter-revolutionary force in the
present epoch, becoming constantly more interested
in the maintenance of order in every corner of the
globe, and on the other hand prepares the ground
for a gigantic revolutionary explosion of this already
dominant and still increasing world imperialist
power. The logic of world relations leads to the
idea that the time of this explosion cannot be very
far apart from that of the proletarian revolution
in Europe.

Our elucidation of the dialectics of the inter-
relations between America and Europe resulted,
during the last few years, in the most diversified
accusations against us — accusations about our
paacifist denial of the existence of European con-
tradictions, our acceptance of Kautsky's theory of
ultra-imperialism and of many other sins. There
is no need to deal here with these "accusation,"
which at best result from a complete ignorance of
the real processes and of our relations to them.
But we cannot refrain from mentioning, however,
that it would be difficult to waste more effort in
confusing and muddling up the most vital world
problem than was wasted, by the way also by the
authors of the draft program, in the petty struggle
against our formulation of the problem which has
been entirely confirmed by the course of events.

Efforts have been made — on paper — in the
leading Communist press, also of recent date, to
minimize the significance of American hegemony
by referring to the imminent economic and indus-
strial crisis in the United States. We cannot enter
into a consideration of the problem of the time
of the American crisis and as to its possible depth.
This is not a question of program but of conjunc-
ture. For us, of course, the inevitability of a crisis
is absolutely unquestionable and, considering the
present world expansion ©f American capitalism,
its great depth and sharpness is not excluded. But
the efforts to minimize or weaken the importance
of North American hegemony on this ground is
not justified by anything, and can only lead to
most profound errors of a strategical character.
On the contrary, IN A CRITICAL EPOCH THE
HEGEMONY OF THE UNITED STATES
WILL PROVE EVEN MORE COMPLETE,

FOMEWORD

With isiue The Mil:

tant beg . tie publicatio:
"The Df ■• Program of th
CommuH«|t ; International: /
Criticism of fundamentals"
by L. D. Trotsky. Th£
documents a nasterpiece o
Marxist'Lqninis! literature wa
submitted by tomrade Troi
sky to the Sixta World Con
gress of the Communist Ir
teraationai vhich finalL
adopted the Jraft prograr
drafted by conrades Buchs
rin "and Jtalin without an
important! charges. The en
tire validity «f this timel
and fundamental criticism re
mains in spitt of the fac
that it was kept from th
Congress and lever discusse-
by the delegates. The soL
attention accoided it was it
distribution to members a
the Program Commissio:
and a report on the docu
ment to the 'Senioren-Kor;
vent" of |he Congress whic"
immediately "settled" the ie
sue without discussion.

A rigid Control on thi
document 1 was establishe«
forthwith ajid the fe^;
copies of he document whicl
were distributed were re
called by hei Secretariat. Ou
publicatirj,? is an authenti.
copy wh&bJwj have just re
ceived. dezls chiefly witl
the role of American In:
perialism «fid (he prospect c
new revolutionary situations
the revisionist theory of "Sc
cialism in one country," wit
the Chinese (evolution an
its lesson^ and with the foi
mation oj wolkers and pea:
ants parties, vhich Trotskj
in line w^b-Lmin, condemn
in principle. Trotsky's coir
ment on the "Third Part
Alliance"' witk La Follette
the fight against which ws
led by hita, will be especial
interesting to American coir
munists. The entire doct
ment will be printed in fu :
consecutively :n this and th
forthcoming (issues of Th
Militant withoiit any change:
Its basic ^importance for th.
international revolutionar
movement ane the unanswei
able corject-n«ss of its, pos.
tion on 4e burning problem
of the (Jomnunist Interna,
tiorial make is an invaluabl-
contribution to the Bolshevil
literature! of our period.

— Editor

E MILITANT

November 11, 1928 .

November 11, 1928.

THE MIL.

OGRAM OF THE COMINTERN i a T£'£LZZ

B

ntly insisted on this On the
e 192 3- 1924 when the problem
;es $>f America arose in its full
i of WORLD and, in the most
word, EUROPEAN POLICY,
new draft program Pravda said
program.

:ntally from the program of interna'
nocracy not only by the substance of
Lit by the characteristic international'
uction." — (Pravda, May, 29, 1928).

definite formulation is expressed
have outlined above and which
bornly rejected. One can only
rture from the first draft pro-
by Bucharin which, properly
rouse any serious exchange of"
lot give enough cause for such,
raft gave a vague schematic.
levelopment of one abstract
cialism, the new draft is trying,
:hout success as we will unfor-
tke world economy as a whole
t in determining the fate of its

ltries and continents of various
tent in a system of mutual
tagohism, levelling out the state
nt and at the same time enlarg-
5 between them and irreconcil-
le country against the other,
i become a mighty reality which
le economy of individual coun-
:s. It is this basic fact that
:a of a world Communist Party
l world economy as a whole to
e phase of development on the
property, imperialism, as the
rrectly states in its introduc-

:ontradiction between the growth of
irces of world economy and national

iderstanding the meaning of
the first time been vividly
^ty in the last imperialist war,
Jmade in dealing with the big
solifics and world revolutionary

have to welcome the bold re-
xis of the program in the new
)r the fact that in the effort to

only correct position, with
ntirely opposing character, the
in arena containing great con-
mdermine the fundamental sig-
w statement of principles.

ED STATES OF EUROPE

the first, fortunately discarded
e to say that, so far as we re'
: even mention the United

The cardinal problems of the
/hich, by dint of the very
h, must be taken not only in
etical but also in their material
:tj were dissolved in the , first

outline of a capitalist country
i/ever,. the new draft, and this
: step forward, states that "the

the world has shifted to the
imerica"; that "the 'Dollar
:ome the exploiter of all coun-
ited States "has already won
>r itself," and finally that the
draft it is wrongly stated "con-
Jnited States and European
f British capitalism, "is be'
n the world conflicts.'" This

absolutely obvious, and a pro'

not contain a clear and exact
main facts and features of the
lid not be a program of an
iionary Party.

: main facts and tendencies of
velopment of the new epoch

mentioned in the text of the
3 it, so to say, in the way of
ting without having any inter-
it of the structure and without
spective of strategical deduct'

f America in Europe since the
Communist Party of Germany

and the defeat of the German proletariat in 1923,
has been entirely left out of consideration. It has
not been made clear that the period of "stabiliz-
ation," "normalization," and "pacification" of Eu-
rope including the "regeneration" of Social Demo-
cracy, has developed in close material and
ideological connection with the first steps of
American intervention in European affairs.

Furthermore, it has not been made clear that
the inevitable further development of American
expansion, the contraction of the markets of
European capitalism, including the European
market itself, entails the greatest military, economic
and revolutionary disturbances such as will leave
all disturbances of the past in the shade.

It has not been made clear that the inevitable
further onslaught of the United States will place
capitalist Europe on a constantly more limited
ration in world economy which, of course, does
not involve a mitigation, but on the contrary, a
monstrous sharpening of the inter-State relations
in Eur6pe with furious paroxysms of military
conflicts, because States as well as classes, are even
more frantically fighting for a hunger ration, nay,
a diminishing ration, than for a lavish and growing
ration.

In the .draft it has not been made clear that the
internal chaos of the State antagonisms of Europe
render hopeless a more or less serious and success-
ful resistance to the constantly more centralized
North American Republic and that the over-
coming of the European chaos in the -form of the
Soviet United States of Europe is one of the first
tasks of the proletarian revolution, which in not
the least degree as a result precisely of State bar-
riers, is much closer in Europe than in America
and which will therefore most, likely have to be
defended from the North American bourgeoisie.

On the other hand it has been left entirely un-
mentioned — and this is not the least important
phase of the same world problem — -that it is
precisely the international strength of -thi United
Staths and its unbridled expansion resulting from
it, that compels it to include powder magazines
throughout the world among the foundations of its
structure — -the antagonisms between the east and
west, the class struggle in Old Europe, uprisings of
the colonial masses, wars and revolution. This on
jthe one hand transforms United States capitalism
into the basic counter-revolutionary force in the
present epoch, becoming constantly more interested
in the maintenance of order in every corner of the
globe, and on the other hand prepares the ground
for a gigantic revolutionary explosion of this already
dominant and still increasing world imperialist
power. The logic of world relations leads to the
idea that the time of this explosion cannot be very
far apart from that of the proletarian revolution
in Europe.

Our elucidation of the dialectics of the inter-
relations between America and Europe resulted,
during the last few years, in the most diversified
accusations against us — accusations about our
paacifist denial of the existence of European con'
tradictions, our acceptance of Kautsky's theory of
ultra-imperialism and of many other sins. There
is no need to deal here with these "accusation,"
which at best result from a complete ignorance of
the real processes and of our relations to them.
But .we cannot refrain from mentioning, however,
that it would be difficult to waste more effort in
confusing and muddling up the most vital world
problem than was wasted, by the way also by the
authors of the draft program, .in the petty struggle
against our formulation of the problem which has
been entirely confirmed by the course of events,

Efforts have been made — on paper — in the
leading Communist press, also of recent date, to
minimize the significance of American hegemony
by referring to the imminent economic and indus-
strial crisis in the United States. We cannot enter
into a consideration of the problem of the time
of the American crisis and as to its possible depth.
This is not a question of program but of conjunc-
ture. For us, of course, the inevitability of a crisis
is absolutely unquestionable and, considering the
present world expansion «f American capitalism,
its great depth and sharpness is not excluded. But
the efforts to minimize or weaken the importance
of North American hegemony on this ground is
not justified by anything, arid can only lead to
most profound errors of a strategical character.
On the contrary, IN A CRITICAL EPOCH THE
HEGEMONY OF THE UNITED STATES
WILL PROVE EVEN MORE COMPLETE,

FomroRD

With istue The Mili-

tant beg > the publication
"The D) '■• Program of the
Commump; International: A
Criticism of fundamentals"
by -L. D. Trotsky. This
document; a masterpiece of
Marxist-Leninist literature was
submitted by tomrade Trot-
sky to the Sixth World Con-
gress of the Communist In-
ternational which finally
adopted ihe draft program
drafted by {parades Bucha-
rin and Stalin, without .any
important! changes. The en-
tire validity of this timely
and fundamental criticism re
mains in spitt of the fact
that it was kept from the
Congress and never discussed
by the delegates. The sole
attention accorded it was its
distribution to members of
the Prftfcram Commission
and a report on the docu-
ment to (he "Senioren-Kon-
vent" of the Congress which
immediately "«ettled" the is-
sue withoilt discussion.

A rigij control on this
document* was established
forthwith ftin'd the few
copies of he document which
were distributed were re-
called by bei Secretariat. Our
publication is an authentic
copy wh&h w« have just re-
ceived, deils chiefly with
the role of American Im-
perialism Ȥd the prospect of
new revolutionary situations,
the revisionist theory of "So-
cialism in one country," with
the Chinese (evolution and
its lessoiy, and with the for-
mation oi woikers and peas-
ants parties which Trotsky,
in line wAh-Lenin, condemns
in princijjle. Trotsky's com'
ment on the "Third Party
Alliance" 1 witli La Follette,
the fight against which was
led by him, will be especially
interesting to American com-
munists. The entire docu-
ment will be printed in full
consecutively in this and the
forthcoming jssues of The
Militant withottt any changes.
Its basic (importance for the
international revolutionary
movemerjt and the unanswer-
able correctness of its, posi-
tion on t|e burning problems
of the Communist Interna-
tional mdke is an invaluable
contribution to the Bolshevik
literature! of our period.

— Editor.

More open, more ruthless, than in

THE PERIOD OF BOOM. The United States
will try to overcome and get out of its difficulties
and helplessness primarily at the expense of
Europe — regardless whether this will happen in
Asia, Canada, South America, Australia or Europe
itself.

It must be clearly understood that if the first
period of American intervention had a stabilizing
and pacifist effect on Europe, which to a consider'
able extent is still alive today and may occassionally
recur and even become stronger (particularly in
time of new defeats of the proletariat), the general
line of American policy, particularly in time of
economic difficulties and crises, brings the greatest
disturbances for Europe as well as for the whole
world.

From here we draw the not unimportant con-
clusion that there will be no lack of revolutionary
situations within the next ten years any more
than in the past. That is why it is so important
to understand the mainsprings of development so
that we may not be caught by their action un-
awares. If in the past decade, the main cause of
revolutionary situations lay in direct consequence
of the imperialist war, in the second post-war de-
cade the main causes of revolutionary situations will
be in the relations between Europe and America. A
big crisis in the United States will give rise to new
wars and revolutions. We repeat: There will be
no lack of revolutionary situations. It is all a
question of an international "proletarian Party, the
ripeness and fighting ability of the Comintern,
the correctness of its strategical positions and
tactical methods.

This trend of thought has found absolutely no
expression in the draft program of the Comintern.
The mentioning of a fact of such great importance
as the fact that "the economic center of the world
has shifted to the United States of America," ap'
pears- as a mere superficial newspaper remark and
no more. It is of course absolutely impossible to
say in justification of this that there was lack of
space, for what are the questions that must find
place in a program if not the principal questions?
Besides, it should be added that too much space
is given inthe program to questions of secondary
and third-rate importance — let alone the general
literary looseness and the numerous repetitions, by
a reduction of which the program might be con-
densed at least one-third.

2a.— SLOGAN OF A SOVIET UNITED
STATES OF EUROPE

The elimination of the slogan of a Soviet United
States of Europe from the new draft program, a ■
slogan which has already been accepted by the
Comintern after a drawn-out internal struggle in
1923, can by no means be justified. Or is i{
perhaps precisely on this question that the authors
want to "return" to Lenin's position of 1915?

In regarding to the slogan of the United States
of Europe, Lenin, as- is known, vacillated at the
beginning of the war. The slogan was at first
included in the theses of the Social Democrat (the
central organ of the Party at the time) and then
rejected by Lenin.

This in itself shows that its suitability was not
a question of a general principle; it was merely a
question of tactics, a question of comparing its
plus and minus signs from the viewpoint of the
given situation. Needless to say that Lenin denied
the possibility of a realization of a CAPITALIST
United States of Europe. That is also how I re'
garded the question when I advanced the United
States slogan, exclusively .as a perspective State
form of the proletarian dictatorship in Europe.

"A more or less complete economic amalgamation
of Europe ACCOMPLISHED FROM THE TOP
by means of an agreement of the capitalist govern-
ments is a Utopia" — I wrote. ^"Here it cannot go
further than partial compromises and half measures.
By this alone an economic, amalgamation of Europe
such as would promise colossal advantages both to
the producer and consumer and to the development
of culture in general, is becoming a REVOLUTION-
ARY TASK OF THE EUROPEAN PROLETA-
RIAT, in its struggle against imperialist protectionism
and its instrument — militarism". — (Trotsky, The
Programme of Peace: collected works, Vol. 3, part I,
page 85. Russian edition).

Further:

"A United States of Europe represents first of all
a form-— the only conceivable form — of proletarian
dictatorship in Europe."— (Ibid., page 92).

But pven in this formulation of the question

Lenin saw AT THAT TL~
With the absence of expe
dictatorship in one country,,
retical clarity on this quei
wing of the social democra
slogan of a United States
given rise to the idea that
ution must begin simultane
whole European continent
danger that Lenin issued a
tion there was not. a shade
Lenin and myself. I wrote

"that not a single country
countries in its struggle,
will be useful and necesss
policy of international inact
for the conception of pai
Without waiting for the a
tinue the struggle on natic
conviction that our initiate
the struggle in other coui
90).

Then follow my words \;
at the Seventh Plenum of 1
most vicious expression of
a "disbelief" in the inner fc
and the hope for aid from v

"And if this" (developn
other countries — L.T.) "w:
less to think (this is born
theoretical thought) that f
Russia would be able to ho
ative Europe, or that Sociali
to remain isolated in a capiti
89-90).

On the ground of this an
quotations is based the cond
ism" by the Seventh Plenur
this "fundamental question"
nothing in common with
therefore stop for a momer
himself.

On March 7, 1918 he sa
the Brest-Litovsk Peace the

"This is a lesson because
without a revolution in Ge
(Vol. If, page 132, Ru'ssi

A week later he said:

"World imperialism side

onslaught of the social rev

together." — (Ibid., page 1'

A few days later on Aprii

"Our BACKWARDNES
and WE WILL PERISH i
hold out until we meet wit
the INSURRECTIONARY
tries." — (Ibid., page 187.

But perhaps this was all
influence of the Brest Li
March 1919 Lenin again rep

"We do not live merely
of states and the existenci
side by side with imper;
LENGTH OF TIME IS
the end one or the other n
page 102).

A year later, April 7, 1921

"Capitalism, if taken on
even now, NOT ONLY
ALSO IN AN ECONOM
the Soviet government. ^
POLICY ON THIS Fl
WHICH WE MUST NE
17, page 102).

In the. same year of 1920

"World imperialism cam
triumphant social revolutioi

On November 27, 192
with the question of concess

"We have now gone ov
to peace and we have no
come again. As long as w
socialism we cannot live ;
the other will»be the victor
ry will have to be sung
world capitalism or the dea
Now we have only a resj
page 398).

But perhaps the further i
Republic made Lenin "reali
discard his disbelief "in the ;
tober revolution?

At the Third Congress ^
wit, in July 1921, Lenin dec

"We have obtained an <
tremely unsound, but ne
such in which the socialis
COURSE NOT FOR A L
surroundings." — (Theses
C.P.S.U.).

November 1?, 1928.

THE MILITANT

Page *

A CRITICISM OF
FUNDAMENTALS

By L. D. TROTSKY

FOME^ORD

With isiue The Mili-

sint beg . the publication
■The Dt ■•■ Program of the
Dommump; International: A
Criticism of fundamentals"
sy \. D. ffotsky. This
3ocument> a masterpiece of
•larxist'L^niaist literature was
submitted by Comrade Trot-
sky-to the Sixth World Con-
gress of ihe Communist In-
;ernationsjl which finally
adopted ihe. flraft program
drafted by cottrades Bucha-
rin "and |talin, without any
mportantiehanges. The en-
tire validity df this timely
and fundamental criticism re-
mains in : spit* of the fact
:hat it was kept from the
Congress and never discussed
by the delegates. The sole
attention »ceo«ded it was its
distribution, to members of
the Program Commission
and a report jon- the docu-
ment to the 'Benioren-Kon-
■vent" of ihe Congress which
immediately "settled" the is-
sue without discussion.

A rigid control on this
document* was established
forthwith a^nid the few
copies of he document which
were distributed were re-
calledby he* Secretariat. Our
publicatie? is an authentic
copy whi&:.*t have just re-
ceived, deals chiefly with
the role of American Im-
perialism afid the prospect of
new revolutionary situations,
the revisionist theory of "So-
cialism in.'; one country," with
the Chinese devolution and
its lesson^ ani with the for-
mation o{ workers and peas-
ants parties, which Trotsky,
in line w4h-L«nin, condemns
in principle. [Trotsky's com-
ment on the "Third Party
Alliance" 1 witfc La Follette,
the fight against which was
led by hita;. w|ll be especially
interesting to American com-
munists.. Th« entire docu-
ment will be printed in full
consecutively in this and the
forthcoming jssues of The
Militant without any changes.
Its basic ^importance for the
international revolutionary
movement and the unanswer-
able corijectness of its, posi-
tion on tje burning problems
of the (Jomntunist Interna-
tional mcjke is an invaluable
contribution to the Bolshevik
literature! of Our period.

—Editor.

MORE OPEN, MORE RUTHLESS, THAN IN
THE PERIOD OF BOOM. The United States
will try to overcome and get out of its difficulties
and helplessness primarily at the expense of
Europe — regardless whether this will happen in
Asia, Canada, South America, Australia or Europe
itself.

It must be clearly understood that if the first
period of American intervention had a stabilizing
and pacifist effect on Europe, which to a consider-
able extent is still alive today and may occassionally
recur and even become stronger (particularly in
time of new defeats of the proletariat) , the general
line of American policy, particularly in time of
economic difficulties and crises, brings the greatest
disturbances for Europe as well as for the whole
world.

From here we draw the not unimportant con-
clusion that there will be no lack of revolutionary
situations within the next ten years any more
than in the past. That is why it is so important
to understand the mainsprings of development so
that we may not be caught by their action un-
awares. If in the past decade, the main cause of
revolutionary situations lay in direct consequence
of the imperialist war, in the second post-war de-
cade the main causes of revolutionary situations will
be in the relations between Europe and America. A
big crisis in the United States will give rise to new
wars and revolutions. We repeat: There will be
no lack of revolutionary situations. It is all a
question of an internationarproletarian Party, the
ripeness and fighting ability of the Comintern,
the correctness of its strategical positions and
tactical methods.

This trend of thought has found absolutely no
expression, in the draft program of the Comintern.
The mentioning of a fact of such great importance
as the fact that "the economic center of the world
has shifted to the United States of America," ap'
pears- as a mere superficial newspaper remark and
no more. It is of course absolutely impossible to
say in justification of this that there was lack of
space, for what are the questions that must find
place in a program if not the principal questions?
Besides, it should be added that too much space
is given ih'the program to questions of secondary
and third-rate importance — let alone the general
literary looseness and the numerous repetitions, by
a reduction of which die program might be con-
densed at least one-third.

2a.— SLOGAN OF A SOVIET UNITED
STATES OF EUROPE

The elimination of the slogan of a Soviet United
States of Europe from the new draft program, a •
slogan which has already been accepted by the
Comintern after a drawn-out internal struggle in
1923, can by no means be justified. Or is it
perhaps precisely on this question that the authors
want to "return" to Lenin's position of 1915?

In regarding to the slogan of the United States
of Europe, Lenin, as- is known, vacillated at the
beginning of the war. The slogan was at first
included in the theses of the Social Democrat (the
central organ of the Party at the time) and then
rejected by Lenin.

This in itself shows that its suitability was not
a question of a general principle; it was merely a
question of tactics, a question of comparing its
plus and minus signs from the viewpoint of the
given situation. Needless to say that Lenin denied
the possibility of a realization of a CAPITALIST
United States of Europe. That is also how I re-
garded the question when I advanced the United
States slogan, exclusively .as a perspective State
form of the proletarian dictatorship in Europe.

"A more or less complete economic amalgamation
of Europe ACCOMPLISHED FROM THE TOP
by means of an agreement of the capitalist govern-
ments is a Utopia" — I wrote. ^"Here it cannot go
further than partial compromises and half measures.
By this alone an economic, amalgamation of Europe
such as would promise colossal advantages both to
the producer and consumer and to the development
of culture in general, is becoming a REVOLUTION-
ARY TASK OF THE EUROPEAN PROLETA-
RIAT. in its struggle against imperialist protectionism
and its instrument — militarism". — (Trotsky, The
Programme of Peace: collected works, Vol. 3, part I,
page 85. Russian edition).

Further:

"A United States of Europe represents first of all
a form — ^the only conceivable form — of proletarian
dictatorship in Europe." — (Ibid., page 92).

But even in this formulation of the question

Lenin saw AT THAT TIME a certain danger.
With the absence of experience of a proletarian
dictatorship in one country, the- absence of a theo-
retical clarity on this question even in the left
wing of the social democracy of that period, the
slogan of a United States of Europe might have
given rise to the idea that the proletarian revol-
ution must begin simultaneously at least on the
whole European continent. It is against this
danger that Lenin issued a warning on this ques-
tion there was not a shade of difference between
Lenin and myself. I wrote at the time:

"that not a single country must 'wait 1 for the other
countries in its struggle. This elementary idea it
will be useful and necessary to repeat • so that the
policy of international inaction may not be substituted
for the conception of parallel international action.
Without waiting for the others, we begin and con-
tinue the struggle on national grounds with the full
conviction that our initiative will give an impulse to
the struggle in other countries." — (Ibid., page 89-
90).

Then follow my words which Stalin presented
at the Seventh Plenum of the E. C. C. I. as the
most vicious expression of "Trotskyism," i. e., as
a "disbelief" in the inner forces of the revolution
and the hope for aid from without.

"And if this" (development of the revolution in
other countries — L.T.) "will not occur, it is hope-
less to think (this is borne out by history and by
theoretical thought) that for instance revolutionary
Russia would be able to hold out in face of conserv-
ative Europe, or that Socialist Germany would be able
to remain isolated in a capitalist world." — ilbid., page
89-90).

On the ground of this and two of three similar
quotations is based the condemnation of "■Trotsky-
ism" by the Seventh Plenum as having held in
this "fundamental question" a position "which has
nothing in common with Leninism." We will
therefore stop for a moment and listen to Lenin
himself.

On March 7, 1918 he said on the question of
the Brest-Litovsk Peace the following:

"This is a lesson because the absolute truth is th; r
without a revolution in Germany we Will perish."- -
(Vol. 15, page 132, Russian Edition).

A week later he said:

"World imperialism side by side with a victorious
onslaught of the social revolution cannot get along
together." — (Ibid., page 175).
A few days later on April 23, Lenin .said:

"Our BACKWARDNESS has thrust us forward
and WE WILL PERISH if we will not be able to
hold out until we meet with the mighty support o?
the INSURRECTIONARY workers of other coun-
tries." — (Ibid., page 187. Our emphasis).

But perhaps this was all said under the special
influence of the Brest Litovsk crisis? No! In
March 1919 Lenin again repeated:

"We do not live merely in a State but in a system
of states and the existence of the Soviet Republic
side by side with imperialist states FOR ANY
LENGTH OF TIME IS INCONCEIVABLE. In
the end one or the other must triumph." — (Vol. 16,
page 102).

A year later, April 7, 1920, Lenin reiterates:

"Capitalism, if taken on an international scale, is
even now, NOT ONLY IN A MILITARY BUT
ALSO IN AN ECONOMIC SENSE, stronger than
the Soviet government. WE MUST BASE OUR
POLICY ON THIS FUNDAMENTAL IDEA
WHICH WE MUST NEVER FORGET."— (Vol.
17, page 102).

In the same year of 1920 we find again:

"World imperialism cannot live together with the
triumphant social revolution." — (ibid., page 197).

On November 27, 1920, Lenin, in dealing
with the question of concessions, said:

"We have now gone over from the arena of war
to peace and we have not forgotten that war will
come again. As long as we still have capitalism and
socialism we cannot live peacefully — either one or
the other will«be the victor in the end. The obitua-
ry will have to be sung either over the . death of
world capitalism or the death of the Soviet Republic.
Now we have only a respite in the war." — (Ibid.,
page 398).

But perhaps the further existence of the Soviet
Republic made Lenin "realize his mistake" and
discard his disbelief "in the inner force" of the Oc-
tober revolution?

At the Third Congress ^ of the Comintern, to
wit, in July 1921, Lenin declared:

"We have obtained an extremely unstable, an ex-
tremely unsound, but nevertheless aa equilibrium
such in which the socialist republic can exist — OF
COURSE NOT FOR A LONG TIME— in capitalist
surroundings." — (Theses on the Tactics of the
C.P.S.U.).

Moreover, on July 5, 1921 Lenin squarely declar-
ed at the Congress:

"It was clear to us that without aid from fche inter-
national worldwide revolution a victory of the pro-
letarian revolution is impossible. Even before the
revolution, and also after it, we thought that the
revolution either IMMEDIATELY OR AT LEAST
very soon will come also in other countries, in the
more highly developed capitalist countries, OTHER-
WISE WE WILL PERISH. Notwithstanding this
conviction, we did our utmost to preserve the Soviet
system under any circumstances and at all costs be-
cause we know that we are not working only for
ourselves but also for the international revolution."
— (Vol, 18, part 1, page, 321 — Our emphasis).

How infinitely far are these words, so excellent
for their simplicity and so permeated through and
through with the spirit of internationalism from
the present self-sufficient epigone machinations.
At any rate, we have, the right to ask wherein
do all these utterances made by Lenin differ from
the ideas I expressed in 1915 that the coming re-
volution in Russia or the coBairag socialist Germany
will not be able to hold out alone if "isolated in
the capitalist world"? The time of realisation is
different from that outlined not only in my but
also in Lenin's predictions. But the main idea re>
mains in full force even now. and perhaps at the
given moment more so than ever before. Instead
of condemning this idea as the Seventh Plenum of
the E. C. C. I. has done on the basis of an incom-
petent and unscrupulous speech, it must be in-
cluded in the program of the Communist Inter'
national.

In defense of the slogan of a Soviet United
States of Europe we said in 1915" that the law of
uneven development is in itself not an argument
against it because the UNEVENNESS of histor-
ical development in relation to the difference coun-
tries and continents IS IN ITSELF UNEVEN.
European countries develop unevenly in relation to
each other. Nevertheless it can be maintained with
absolute historical certainty that it will not be
the fate of a single one of them, at least in the
historical epoch under review, to run so far ahead
in relation to the other countries as America has
advanced in relation to Europe. For America there
is one SCALE OF UNEVENESS, for Europe there
is another. 'Geographically and historically con'
ditions have predetewnined such a close organic
contact between the countries of Europe that by
no means can they tear themselves out of it. The
modern bourgeois governments of Europe are like
murderers chained to one cart. The revolution m
Europe, as has already been said, will, IN THE
FINAL ANALYSIS, be of decisive importance
also for America. But DIRECTLY, in the im-
mediate historical course, a revolution in Germany
will be of an immeasurably greater significance for
France than for the United States of America.
From this historically developed relationship fol-
lows also the political vitality of the slogan of a
European Soviet Federation. We speak of its
RELATIVE vitality because it stands to reason
that this Federation will extend, through the great
bridge of the Soviet Union, to Asia and will then
effect an amalgamation of the World Socialist Re-
publics. But this will be a second epoch or a
further great chapter of the imperialist epoch, and
when we enter it more closely we will also find the
corresponding formulae necessary for it.

That the differences with Lenin in 1915 on the
question of the United States of Europe was a
narrow tactical, and by its very essence, temporary
character, can be proven without any difficulty by
further quotations, but it is best proven by the
further trend of events. In 1923 the Comintern
officially adopted the slogan. If it is true that the
slogan of the United States of Europe could not
be accepted in 1915 on grounds of principle, as
the authors of the draft program now maintain,
then the Comintern had no right to adopt it eight
years later. The law of uneven development, one
should think, has not lost its force of action during
these years.

The formulation of the question as outlined a-
bove follows from the dynamics of the revolution'
ary process taken as a whole. The international
revolution is regarded as an inter-connected,
process which cannot be predicted 'in all its con-
creteness, but the general historical outlines of ii
are absolutely clear. Without understanding them
' a correct political orientation is entirely out of the
question.

Matters, however, appear quite differently if we
proceed from the idea of socialist development

Page 6

THE MILITANT

November 1?, 1928.

IMIlBMMBllltHallMiailMIIIBHB

which transpires and is even being completed in
one country. We have now a "theory" which
teaches that it is possible to build up Socialism in
one country and that the inter-relations or that
country with the capitalist world can be built on
the * basis of "neutralisation 11 of the world
bourgeoisie (Stalin). Advancing this essentially
national-reformist and not revolutionary interna-
tional point of view, the necessity for the slogan
of a United States of Europe falls away or is at
least diminished. But this slogan is, from our
viewpoint, important and vitally necessary pre-
cisely because it condemns the idea of an isolated
socialist development. For the proletariat of every
European country, even to a greater extent than
fpr the U.S.S.R. — the difference is only of degree
— it writ be of the most vital necessity to carry
the revolution to the neigbouring countries and
td support insurrections in them with arms in hand
not' because of abstract international solidarity,
which- is in itself unable to move the classes, but
because of the vital considerations which Lenin has
fririfrulated hundreds of times — namely, Without
TAMELY aid from the international revolution we
will: not be able to hold out. The slogan of the
Soviet United- States' corresponds with the dyn-
amics of the "proletarian revolution which does not
break out simultaneously in all countries, but
passes on from country to country and requires
closest class contact among them, especially on
European territory, both with the object of defense
against tSie. most - powerful- foreign foes, and with
economic objects.

©he may, it is true, try to object, declaring that
since the period of the Ruhr crisis which was the
vary last .impulse for the adoption of that slogan,
the. latter has not played a big role in the agitation
of-the Communist Parties of Europe and has, so
to -speak, not taken root. But this is fully true also
of the slogans of a Workers Soviet Government,
etc., i. e., of all slogans to be used ON THE
VERY EVE OF REVOLUTION. This may be
explained by the fact that since the end of 1923,
notwithstanding the mistaken political expectations
of the Fifth Congress, the revolutionary movement
on the European continent has been on the decline.
But that is exactly why it is detrimental to build
a program, or some of its parts, under the impres-
sions received only in that period. It was not by
mere accident that, despite all prejudices, the
slogan -of a Soviet United States of Europe was
accepted precisely in 1923 when a revolutionary
outburst was expected in Germany and when the
question of State inter-relationships in Europe as-
sumed an exceedingly burning character. Every
new accentuation of the European, and, parti-
cularly, the world crisis, is gray.e enough to be able
to- raise ths main political problems, and to advance
again the slogan of the United States of Europe.
It is therefore fundamentally wrong to keep silent
oyer the slogan without having rejected it, that is,
to keep it somewhere in reserve, to be used "in
emergency." On questions of principle the keep-
ing in reserve policy does not hold good.

3. THE CRITERION OF INTER-
NATIONALISM

The draft, as we already know, is making an
effort to proceed in ks construction from the view-
point of world economy and its inner tendencies —
a thing which deserves recognition. The Pravda
is absolutely riglit when it says that therein lies the
basic and fundamental difference between us and
national - patriotic Social Democracy. Only by
taking world eccnomy, which dominates over all
its parts, as a basis can a program of the interna-
tional-proletarian Party be built. But precisely in
analysing- the main - tendencies of world develop-
ment the draft displays not only an incompleteness,
which depreciates its value, ae has already been
pointed out above, but also falls into gross one-
sidedness leading to grave blunders.

The draft refers many times, and not always in
th*e proper place, to the law of uneven develop-
ment? of capitalism as to the main and almost all-
determining law of that development. Many mis-
takes in the draft including the fundamental error;,
ace theoretically based on the one-sided and mis-
taken iron-Marxian and non-Leninist interpretation
of the law of uneven development.

In the first chapter the draft says:

"Uneven economic and political development is
an aSsolute law of capitalism. This unevenness be-
comes still more accentuated and intensified in the
epoch of imperialism."

This is true. This formula in part condemns
Stalin's formulation of the question, according to
which Marx and Engels did. not know the law of
ufcevfeh development and that it was first discover-
ed by Lenin. On September 15, 1925, Stalin

wrote that Trotsky has no reason to refer to Engels
who wrote at a time "when THERE COULD B£
NO QUESTION of the -knowledge of the law of
uneven development of capitalist countries." Un-
believable as these words may be, Stalin, one of
the authors of the draft, has nevertheless repeated
them more than once. The text of the draft, as
we have seen, has taken a step forward in this res-
pect. If however, we leave aside the correction of
this elementary mistake, what is said in the draft
about the law of uneven development is in essence
one-sided and insufficient.

It would have been more correct first of all to
say that the whole history of mankind is governed
by the law of uneven development. Capitalism
finds various sections of mankind at diverse stages
of development with grave internal contradictions
in each one of them. Great diversity in the var-
ious levels, and extraordinary uneveness in the rate
of development of the different parts of mankind
in the various periods of time, is the STARTING
POINT of capitalism. The latter gains mastery
gradually over the inherited unevenness. It breaks
and alters it, employing thereby its own methods
and its own ways. In contradistinction to the econ-
omic system which preceded it, capitalism is con-
stantly aiming at economic expansion, at the pene-
tration of new territories; the mitigation of econ-
omic differences, the conversion of hemmed'in pro-
vincial and national economies into a system of fin-
ancial inter-relationships and thereby brings about
their approchement and equalises the economic and
cultural levels of the most progressive and backward
countries. Without this main process, the relative
levelling out of, at first, Europe with Great Britain
and then America with Europe, the industrializ-
ation of the colonies, the diminishing distance be-
tween India and Great Britain, with all the conse-
quences arising from the enumerated processes
upon which is based not only the, program of the
Communist International, but also its very exist-
ence, would be inconceivable. By bringing the
countries economically nearer to each other and
levelling out their state of development, capitalism
acts however, by methods of its OWN, that is by
anarchistic methods which constantly undermine
its own work by playing up one country against
another and one branch of industry against an-
other, developing some parts of world economy,
while hampering and throwing back the develop-
ment of some of its other parts. Only the merging
of these two main tendencies — the centrifugal and
centripetal, the levelling and equalising tendencies
which equally arise from the nature of capitalism — -
explains to us the live texture of the historical
process of the last centuries.

Imperialism, thanks to the universality, pene-
trability and mobility, and the break-neck- rapidity
in the formation of finance capital as the driving
force of imperialism, lends vigor to both of these
tendencies. Imperialism links up imcomparably
more rapidly and more deeply the individual nat-
ional and continental units into one, bringing them
into closest and most vital dependence upon each
other and rendering their economic methods, social
forms and levels of development more identical. It
attains this "aim" at the same time by means of
such antagonist methods, such jumps, and such
flights on the backward countries and districts,
that the unification and levelling of world econ-
omy effected by it is upset by themselves even
more rapidly and in a more convulsive manner than
in preceding epochs. Only such a dialetical and
not purely mechanical understanding of the law of
uneven development can make possible the avoid-
ance of the fundamental error which the draft
program, submitted to the Sixth Congress, has
failed to avoid.

Right after the one-sided characteristic of the
law of uneven development pointed out by us, the
draft program says:

"From this it follows that the international prole-
tarian revolution must not be regarded as a single
simultaneous and universal act. * The victory of
socialism is at first possible in a few o-r even in one
capitalist courjtry."

That the international revolutions of the prole-
tariat cannot be a simultaneous act, of this, it
goes wrthout saying, there can in general be no'
dispute among growi. up people after the ex-
perience of the October Revolution effected by the
proletariat of a backward country under pressure
of historical necessity, without having in the
least waited for the proletariat of the advanced
countries "to even out the front." To that extent
the reference to the law of uneven development
is absolutely correct and quite in place. But mat-
ters stand quite differently with the second half
of the deduction — namely, the meaningless state-

ment that the victory of Socialism is possible "in
one capitalist country." To prove its point the
draft program simply says— "From this it follows."
One gets the impression that it follows from the
law of uneven development. But it does, not follow'
at all. "From this follows" something quite the
contrary. If the historical process would be such
that some countries develop not only unevenly, but
even INDEPENDENTLY OF EACH OTHER,
isolated from each other, then from the law of un-
even development would no doubt follow the pos-
sibility of the building up of Socialism in one capit-
alist country — at first in the most advanced country
and then, as they mature, in the more backward
ones. That was the customary, so to say, average
idea of the transition to Socialism within the ranks
of pre-war social democracy. This idea was
precisely the theoretical basis of social patriotism.
Of course the draft program does not hold this
view. But it is incrined towards it.

The theoretical error of the draft lies in the fact
that it seeks to deduct from the law of uneven
development something which the law ' does net
imply and cannot imply. Uneven or sporadic
development of various countries constantly upsets
but by no means ELIMINATES the growing
economic ties and inter-dependence of these coun-
tries which the very next day after four years of
hellish war were compelled to exchange their coal,
bread and oil for powder and suspenders. On this
basic questions the draft expresses the idea that
historical development proceeds only on the basts
of sporadic jumps while the economic basis
which gives rise to these jumps, and upon which
they occur, is entirely left out of sight by the
authors of the draft, or -is forcefully eliminated by
them. This is done with the sole object of defend-
ing the undefendable theory of Socialism in one
country.

After what has been said, it is not difficult to
understand that the only correct way to formulate
the question would be that Marx and Engels had
even prior to the imperialist epoch arrived at the
conclusion that oh the one hand uneveness. i. e.,
sporadic historical development, stretches the. pro-
letarian revolution through a whole epoch in the
course of which the nations will enter the revolu-
tionary flood one after another, while, on the other
hand, the organic inter-dependence of the various
countries, the developing international division of
labor, excludes the possibility of building up So-
cialism in one country, the more so now in the
present epoch when imperialism 'has developed,
deepened and sharpened both these antagonistic
tendencies and has rendered the Marxian doctrine
that the Socialist revolution can begin only on a
national basis while the building up of a Socialist
society withing national boundaries is impossible,
DOUBLY AND TREBLY TRUE. On this ques-
tion, Lenin merely developed and put in concrete
terms Marxist formulations and Marx's answer t*
this question.

Our Party program is entirely based on the un-
derlying international conditions of the October
revolution and Socialist construction. To prove
this, one would only have to copy the theoretical
part of our program. Here we will merely poist
out that when at the Eighth Congress of the Party,
the late Podbelsky alluded that some formulations
of the program refer only to the revolution in Rus-
sia, Lenin replied in his concluding speech on the
question of the Party program (March 19, 1919)
the following:

"Podbelsky raised objections to the paragraph
which speaks of the PENDING social revolution. His
argument is obviously unfounde_d because IN OUR
PROGRAM IT IS A QUESTION OF THE SO-
CIAL REVOLUTION ON AN INTERNATION-
AL SCALE."— (Vol. 16, page 113).

It will not be out of place to point out here that
at about the same time Lenin suggested that our
Party change its name from Communist Party of
Russia to Communist Party so as to emphasize still
further that is a party of INTERNATIONAL
REVOLUTION. I was the only one voting for
that motion at the C. C. However, he did net
bring the matter before the Congress in view of
the foundation of the Third International. This
position proves that there could not even have
been a thought of Socialism in one country at that
time. That alone is the reason why the Party
-program does not condemn this "theory" but
merely EXCLUDES it.

But the Young Communist League program
which was adopted two years later had to issue a
direct warning against home-bred illusions and
narrow-mindedness on the question of proletarian
revolution, with the object of training the youth
in the spirit of internationalism. But we will stall
speak of this later. (TO. 8E CONTINUED)

November 15, 1928.

THE MILITANT

Page 7

The Right Danger in the American Party

THE main danger in the American Party comes
from the right. This is due to the changing
objective conditions of the class struggle in the
United States and the opportunist political line
of the Lovestone. group which is the majority of
the Central Committee.

The maturing inner contradictions of American
capitalism and the leftward drift of the masses
produce a turning point in the class struggle. From
a long period of retreat before the onslaught of
capital the American workers are passing over into
a period of defense and resistance preliminary to
a higher phase of offensive and aggressive strug-
gle against capitalist exploitation.

In this period of increasing sharpness -of class
relations and class struggles in the United States,
requiring a reorientation of the Party's perspec
lives to changing conditions and a reformulation
of Party policy toward more aggressiveness, ini-
tiative and militancy, we confront the danger of
holding on to old perspectives, outworn policies
and methods of work, which prevent the full un-
folding of the Party's leadership in the developing
struggles.

The danger in such a period as we are entering
in the United States comes from the right. This
danger becomes real and actual because the Love-
stone group, which constitutes the majority in -the
Central Committee, refuses to orientate itself to
the changing conditions of struggle and pursues
an opportunist line, as will be proven in the fol-
lowing points.

1. — Overestimation of the Reserve Powers of
American Imperialism.

Two basic factors determine 'the condition of
American capitalism in the present period: 1) The
maturing inner contradictions of American capital-
ism (disproportion between the rate of expansion
of productive capacity and rate of growth of
volume qf production, disproportion between the
growth of production and consumption, unemploy-
ment, the contradictions of rationalization, capital
export, polarization of wealth and poverty, etc.)
are beginning to produce qualitative changes in
the whole economic system; 2) These inner con-
tradictions are maturing in the surroundings of a
declining world capitalism and the Socialist growth
of the U.S.S.R. which sharpen, intensify and
accelerate the development of the contradictions
of American capitalism, hastening the coming of
its downfall.

An analysis of the degree of ripeness of those
contradictions, will show that American capitalism
is about to reach the apex of growth and that fur-
ther expansion leads American capitalism to fur-,
ther and more drastic attacks upon the standards
®f life of the American masses and to an attempt
at an armed redivision of the world market and
spheres of imperialist domination, both of which
only further intensify these contradictions leading
to the downfall of American imperialism.

In the light of the above, the present economic
depression must inevitably become the forerunner
of a deep-going crisis, even though American
capitalism may succeed 'in postponing its coming
with the help of the reserve powers which it still
enjoys. This depression cannot be viewed mere-
ly as a "normal" cyclical depression having only
slight and passing effects.. On the contrary, be-
cause of the qualitative changes which are taking
place in American capitalist economy every such
cyclical depression intensifies to the highest de-
gree the contradictions of capitalism, undermines
deeper the entire_ structure, eventually leading to
deep-going crises.

The Lovestone group has an entirely diffent
conception of the position and present phase of
American capitalism. This conception is marked
by the following characteristics:

1. The main emphasis upon the tendencies mak-
ing for the growth and power of American capitalism.

2. Totally inadequate emphasis upon the force
and cumulative effect of the contradictions of Amer-
ican capitalism, which are already producing qual-
itative changes.

3. The Lovestone group sees no qualitative
changes taking place in American capitalism.

4. Lack of proper evaluation of the inner con-
tradictions of American capitalism as distinct from
the undermining effects of the' declining world cap-
italism and the growth of the U.S.S.R.

5. Viewing the coming of deep-going crises in
America mainly as a result of the disintegrating in-
fluences of declining world capitalism, relegating to
the background the effects of the inner contradic-
tions of American capitalism.

6. Following the lead of bourgeois economists in

The following document was submitted by the delega-
tion of the Opposition in the American Party to the
Sixth World Congress of the Communist International,
in July 1928 and signed by James P. Cannon, William
Z. Foster, William F. Dunne, Alex Bittelman, J. W.
Johnstone, Manuel Gomez and George Siskin. This
serious and powerful political indictment of the line
and activities of the Lovestone-Pepper leadership of
the American Party was dismissed — after the sessions of
the Congress had been concluded — with a ten line set of
motions which were adopted by the Political Secretariat of
the I3,C.C,I. Neither the scant treatment accorded to
this document by the E.C.C.I. nor the present attempt of
some of the former "leaders" of the Opposition in the
.American Party to depart from this platform in any way
disturbs the essential validity of this indictment and its
proposals. EyeiWs '" '^ Party since its presentation to
the E.C.CJ. have entirely confirmed the correctness of
the line of the document, and excepting certain wrong
formulations contained in it on the world position and
rote of American imperialism, we contiue to stand on it.

The LovesMMJe-Pepper majority has voted to prohibit
the publication Of circularization of this document in the
ranks. We will print it consecutively in "The Militant."
The following is the first installment.- — EDITORS.

American masses' and the coining of a turning point
in the class struggle.

2. Denial of the existence of a widespread and
general leftward or radicalisation drift among the
bulk of the American workers, covering it up with
a demagogic and false charge against the minority
that it believes in a- deep-going "revolutionary"
radicalisation of the "entire" American working
class.

3. Carrying over into the question of the mood
of the masses the bourgeois "theory of spottiness,"
insisting upon the "spotty" nature of ladkalization
in the sense that it is found only among the workers
in the mining, textile and needle industries.

4. Failure to recognize a leftward drift among
the working farmers. Failure to develop an effective
agrarian program. Failure to treat the agricultural
workers as part of the proletariat!'

5. Instead of taking advantage of the obvious 1
manifestations of the radicalization drift of the masses,
the Lovestone group underestimates it, and con-
tinually and systematically (in speeches, articles,!
resolutions, etc.) issues warnings atvd concentrates
its attack against those, wbo.are .seeking to attract
the Party's attention and orientate its policy on the:
growing favorable condition for struggle resulting
from this radicalization.

The sum of these characteristics constitute a,
serious underestimation of the leftward drift of
the American masses.

III. — Lack of Perspective of Stskigglc.

The growing aggressiveness of American capital
ism, internally against the masses, externally
against its imperialist rivals, chiefly England, and
the leftward drift of the masses, constitute the main-
basis for a perspective of sharpening class stiug ;
gle and an increasing degree of leadership of our
Party in the struggles of the masses. This follows
from a correct analysis of the diminishing reserve
powers of American capitalism and 'the growing
leftward drift of the masses.

The E.C.C.I. letter to our Party of April 13,
1928, states in the following way this perspective
of struggle in America:

"Amid an atmosphere of growing deep depression
developing towards a crisis and more acute and
aggressive policy on the part uf American im-
perialism at home and abroad (naval budget, perse-
cution of the workers through injunctions, Nicara-
gua, Philippines, Mexico and so or*); and under
conditions of a rapidly growing participation of the
workers in mass struggles, as shown by the heroic
struggle of the miners in Pennsylvania and Ohio, by
the Passaic textile workers strike, the fight in the
needle trades, the historic Sacco-Vanzctti agitation;
the Workers' (Communist) Party, which has already
played the leading role in these struggles, and was
able also to take a prominent part in the miners'
struggle in Colorado, has now as its oajor task to
mobilize and organize the workers under its banmr
against the capitalist offensive and against the re-
formist supporters of capitalism, namely, rhc Amer-
ican Federatio/i of Labor, and the Socialist Party

The murderous effects of the rationalisation „f America." (TO BE CONTINUED)

drive of American capitalism upon the masses
(4,000,000 unemployed, speed-up, wage-cuts, etc.), , OUR NEXT ISSUE

\ , ■ • • i- . ■ „{ 4-U„ A m o,-, the next issue or The Militant will contain: Another

the sharoenin<* imperialist aggression or the Amer- . .. , „ , , _, . . , , T . . -

uie biidipciini a liii^wmiiji. u S8 -out ' installment ot Trotsky s Criticism oi the Dra.1t Program

ican ruling class (Nicaragua, China, 1 hilippines, ot - the Communist International. A review of the Pres-

etc), the success of Socialist construction in the idential election results. Another section oi the "Right

USSR the systematic breakdown of the effects Danger in the American Party." An article on trade

of capitalist and reformist propaganda, are all pro- ""ion questions. Reports and comment on the struggle

ui i_ciijii.a,ii3u ttnu , t , r , & . r '. , r against bureaucratic expulsions of Communists from the

dyeing a widespread leftward drift ot the masses Party Morc documcnts of thc Russian Opposition; and

in the United States. ether material and comment for the Party discussion.

There is a general growth of discontent, mili-

tancv and readiness to struggle .i-mon- the rc£- \ CIRCULATE =

skilled and unskilled workers (the bulk of thc . ;

American proletariat). A process of widespread • XI-II7 IWIH IT A WT =

and general radicalization is taking place m all : I OIL IflJULiI I f\Jk* 1 :

industries among the most exploited sections of : .«•■»/-» *■ ,« r\ •

, . ^ * • The Militant, official Organ or the Op- .

the workers. ;■■.._ • ** ^ • .. m » /■ I

_,..,. , ..... j ., t ., , ,„„„„ ■ position Group m the Communist Party ot :

This leftward or radicalization drift of the masses . l . * . • ■ ■

,i .. i , „t " America, which makes its appearance with ■»

came to most active expression in the struggle of ■ . . ' , \ t\ -

, ., , _,, ^ , i „„„ " this issue, will be published twice ;r month. •

the mining, textile, and neettle trades workers, ; it. j :

, . , ■ i i r *. i ♦ r ■ « It will print regularly the suppressed writings I

and in the widespread foment and prospects for . r *> -'. • r . 4 » i j ■

, . , 5 u-i u • i t. „ i ,■„,* : or Irotsky, Radek. Ztnoviev and other lead- :

struggle m the automobile, shoe, oil, meat packing, ; , ' - . ;

, , , , ■ j , • ■ crs or thc International Commtmj<;t move- .

rubber, and other industries. ; „ , . . , ,. . . ;

-pi » -i r ... c >t t? r> n t «.„ -, , p,^,, ■ merit as well as timely articles and tdntorials :

The April letter of the E.C.C.I. to our Party . . .-. ,",.

, • ,_i • i i r.. i j iv „ "„ „„„ : on the American situation which art* denied ;

characterizes this general leftward drift as a rap- ; ,...., , . , _,, ;

,, , : ' • _• i • „u l , ■, „,.. ■ publication in the official Party Press. I he ■

idly growing participation of the workers in mass • i . ; .

' ., ,, r ! material published in The Militant cannot \

struggles. ■ , \ , »u '

r,. ., ,- t .. i i u ii i„ : be secured r-om 'any other source. ■

Similar signs of foment and leftward develop- ; / ;

i ..i l • „ t „ u , Subscribe to 1 he Militant and order a •

ment are shown among the working farmers who ; ■

continue to suffer under the effects of the agri- : ' un e " I

cultural crisis which though somewhat retarded, ; SUBSCRIPTION BLANK :

has not been liquidated. ■ „ , #i :■ j r\ r\ n c ■ ■ < u "

, , . , , ., , ,. . , , . " Enclosed tmd One Dollar for one years sub- ■

This leftward dnit means a definite break in I ;

the mood of the American masses. A break from = scn P tlon to The M,htant " :

passivity and retreat to increasing militancy and • NAME 2

struggle. : ;

The Lovestone group does not share this point ; ADDRFSS »

of view. Its conception of the mood of the Ameri- 1 ' ' '""" I

can masses is marked by the following character- ; ;

istics: - CITY „..' :

■ m

1. Failure to sec the break in the mood of the >uiihh«ihh«iii««hihhuhmihhh«hhh i

evaluating the present depression only as. a "reces-
sion." On this the Lovestone group persisted as late
as February, 1928.

7. Accepting the "theory of spottiness" of the
capitalist press and capitalist economists to explain
the nature of the present depression and refusal to
see its special characteristic as a forerunner of a
deep-going crisis.

8. Underestimation of the great significance in
the imperialist epoch of the strikingly uneven devel-
opment of industry (coal, oil, textiles, etc.) in con-
nection with other inner contradictions of American
capitalism.

9. Failure to understand the processes of ration-
alisation, the menacing nature of the movement
designated as capitalist-engineering-efficiency-social-
isin and the integration of the labor aristocracy and
bureaucracy into the imperialist machine of American
capitalism.

10. Failure to understand, the full effects of the
rationalization drive upon the workers particularly
as represented by the large extent of wage cuts,
espe'ciatJy piece rates.

Ill Assuming that the course of American im-
perialism will proceed mainly along the lines of
development of British capitalism and failure to
understand the basically different present world situ-
ation.

The totality of these characteristics make for a
dangerously opportunist conception of present-day
American capitalism and for a grave overestimation
of its reserve powers.

This tendency of the Lovestone group finds its
expression in the. original draft of the February
thesis, the C.E.C. plenum resolution of May 1927,
and in the writing and speeches of Comrades Love-
stone, Pepper, Wolfe, Nearing, etc., etc.

II. — Underestimation of the Leftward Drift of
the Masses.

fcnge ,8

THE MILITANT

November 15, 19.28.

The Fortress of the World Revolution

ELEVEN years have gone by since the Russian
workers' took the hammer of revolution in
tJiefr hailds and broke the chain of World Inv
penalising at its weakest link. The history of the
whole intervening period represents on the one
Hand -the efforts of the imperialists to forge that
cliain together again and bind it tighter around
the erfslayetl masses, and, on the other hand, the
struggle or the proletariat to tear it apart from the
Whole of humanity.

' "The Russian Revolution was not merely a na-
tiorial event— 'it was 'the beginning of and signal
ibr' the International Proletarian Revolution. Here-
in lies itsfrae meaning, its great historic signific
ahce. From'this standpoint the revolutionary
Workersrof the. world hail the cause of Soviet Rus-
sia as their "Cause on the eleventh anniversary of
her "October"

The' Russia*f Revolution broke forever the
''urflty''" of the world and divided it into two hostile
camps-i-the camp of imperialist exploitation . and
the camp of social revolution. At one polar ex-
treme stands America, the strongest imperialist
world power. At the other stands the U.S.S.R.,
the land of the workers rule. The antagonism be-
tween them aind the systems they represent is
irreconcilable:. They cannot live together per-
jnafnently side by side. The victory of the Soviet
.system on a world scale means the liberation of en-
*laved,humariity and its ascent to heights of culture
■arid achievettteht beyond our dreams — to socialism
and beyond 'that: to communism. The victory of
'itapeiialisto :would hurl civilization into the abyss.
Sumi's the; is^ue of "the epoch of wars and revolu-
tions." in :which we live and fight.

The Russian Revolution revivified the revolu-
tionary movement of the world and inspired the
proletarian masses with new confidence and hope.
It lifted up the banner of socialism, trampled in
the mud of social-patriotism by the traitor leaders
of the "socialist" parties, and made it again syn-
onymous with Internationalism. Lenin; the leader
of the Russian Revolution, was also the leader of
the Communist International which arose out of
the ruins brought about by social treason in the
war. Eleven years of the dictatorship of the pro-
letariat has confirmed everything that Lenin taught
about the international significance of the revolu-
tion and the indissoluble bonds between it and the
world proletariat.

Soviet Russia is the fortress of the World Rev
olution. While it stands the imperialist system
shakes on its foundations. Every attempt at "stab-
ilization" brings greater insecurity and deeper con-
tradictions. The example and the brotherly help
of Soviet Russia inspires and strengthens the move-
ment of the workers and oppressed peoples
throughout the world. The flag of our Socialist
Fatherland is the flag of our hope and on this
eleventh anniversary we again hail it as our own.

Between the Soviet Republics united in the
U.S.S.R. and the international revolutionary pro-
letariat there is an organic connection. They are
bound together spiritually and politically. They
are united by ties of mutual solidarity which no
power on earth can break. Just as the Soviet Re-
publics constitute an impregnable fortress of the
world revolution so is the international proletariat
the protector of the Soviet Republics. The rev-
olutionary workers see in every blow aimed at

Soviet Russia a blow aimed at their own cause and
re?ct against it as such. Te defense of the Soviet
Union is our own fight. It is and will be a central
rallying slogan of the labor militants of the entire
world. "Defend the Soviet Union!" is a slogan
leading the workers to follow the example of the
Russian Revolution. So they must conceive it. So,
will the victory of socialism in Russia and through-
out the world be finally secured.

The victory of the Russian proletariat grew out
of the World War. The establishment of the
dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia and the
organization of trie Communist International— two
vast achievements historically linked together—
are the plus signs against the slaughter of the mil-
lions and the collapse of the Second International.
The imperialist war makers and their "socialist"
lackeys unleashed forces which they could not
conrol.

The imperialist masters of the world want to
take back these gains of the workers wrested out
of the bloody pit of war and revolution. Arma-
ments are being multiplied on an unprecedented
scale. War clouds darken the skies. War plans
grow apace. They are aimed primarily at Soviet
Russia and through it at the entire international
labor movement.

The celebrations of the workers throughout the
world on this eleventh anniversary of the Russian
Revolution must therefore be dominated above all
by the solemn realization of the war danger and
the steel resolve to meet it by revolutionary means;
by the resolve to put all our weight and all our
sacrifice in the scale for the cause of Soviet Russia
which is the cause of the oppressed and exploited

A-

Slogans for Today

A Moscow Wifeless to the Daily Worker (11-1-
1928) reports that the leading article of the
Pravda of October 31, has raised the following
slogans as "nfost apt to the present" for the elev-
enth artniyersar.y of the Bolshevik revolution:
Against the Kulak! Against the Nepman! Against
*he Bureaucrats!

Less than' a year ago, at the l?th Congress of
the* Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the
leaders of ; the Opposition raised precisely these
slogans to be adopted by the Party. For this ser-
vice Trotsky, Radek, and dozens of the best and
most loyal IBdlshevik fighters were expelled from
the Party, and many of them sent into exile and
worse.

The adoption of these slogans now, after a
harmful delay of two' or three years, is a typical
example of thezig-zag policy that has characterized
the « course of the Central Committee in general,
«£rids the Stalitt group within it in particular. And
eye« their 'adoption at this point cannot, in the
face-bf what 'has happened in the past, be taken at
full face* value.

At the T4th Party Conference the decision on
tlie-' leasing of land and the employment of wage
worker's iri the village was a concealed concession
to the Kulaks. The consequence of this false
measure^he extension of the franchise to exploit-
ing elements' in the village — was only a logical step
in" the direction of the course which yielded to the
pressure 6f the private-capitalist elements in town
and- village. Armed' with Stalin's slogan at the
1'4'th'CMfereftce of the Party of "Fire against the
Le'ft v '^whicrt he later attempted to deny having
i&ued-^-the Opposition was made the object of
the Party's blows while the Kulak's and the Nep-
manV strength waxed under the false policy of the
Central Committee.

The demands of the Opposition for a struggle
against the Kulak so as to weaken- his power and
influence and prevent his growth at the expense
of the' poor and middle peasantry were violently
refected'. As late as 1926, Stalin denounced
them as raisers of "alarm," of "panic." At the
15th Paity Conference (November 1926) Buch-
arin teked triumphantly: "Since the Kulak has be-
come so formidable, why has he not played us
sttme nasty trick?" A new, anti-Leninist and
revisionist conception of the Kulak began to ap-
pear in the ranks of the Party. "The Kulak is
growing into socialism," announced Bucharin.
"The Kulak is a bogey from the old world ...
only represented by a few individuals already in
the, process of extinction," wrote Boguschevsky.
"Our policy with regard to the village must ad-

vance along the line of removing and restroying
the many restrictions hindering the growth and
undertakings of the well-to-do peasants and Ku-
laks," said Bucharin at the 14th Party Conference,
"we must say to the peasants, to all the peasants:
Enrich yourselves, develop your undertakings, have
no fear that you will be repressed." As late as one
year ago, the five year plan of national economy
proposed by Rykov and Kchichanovsky hailed the
"decline in the private capitalist elements in town
and couhtry."

The repeated warnings of the Opposition not
only went unheeded, but were denounced as "de-
featism, pessimism, hopeful speculation on a crisis"
and in similar slanderous manner. ' "The Opposi-
tion proposes to deprive the peasants of their last
penny." The Opposition was endeavoring to in-
duce us "to bleed the peasantry to the utmost, to
squeeze everything possible out of him." The
Stalin-Rykov-Kuibyschev economy proclamation
said that they were "proposing to plunder the peas-
antry." The Pravda sneered at the Opposition
for "its super-industrialization, its noise about Ku-
lak and NEP dangers."

But events have their logic, and class forces and
relations their irresistible pressure. The grain
requisitions of this year demonstrated to the hilt
the correctness of the Opposition's estimate of the
growing strength and aggressiveness of the Kulak.
The conspiracy in the Donetz Basin tore aside the
veil that concealed the bureaucratic corruption
that had seeped into the State, the economic and
the Party apparatus.

The slogans adopted on the 11th anniversary,
under the pressure of the Party masses and the
persistent fight of the Opposition, will acquire
content, point and driving power when the entire
line of the Opposition will be adopted along with
them. They will receive their guarantee of realiza-
tion with the return to the Party of their original
protagonists and most stubborn and consistent -sup-
porters with whose fight they have always been
associated. Unless Stalin — who has zig-zagged
from "Fire against the Left!" to "Fire against the
Right!" — capitulates to the. Rykov- Tomsky-Kalinin
right wing in the Polburo he will be forced to the
left, to the line of the Opposition. The latter
alternative is the logical outcome of the tendencies
and situation in the Soviet Union and its Com-
munist Party. — m.s.

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The 'Outlook' Expose

The revelations contained in the current number
of The Outlook on the innocence of the martyred
Vanzetti in the Bridgewater hold-up and the
scoundrelly cynicism of the authorities to whom
the facts were vailable can only serve as corrobor-
ative evidence. The certainty of the entire inno-
cence of Sacco and Vanzetti of any of the crimes
charged against them was long ago firmly estab-
lished in the eyes of the militant working class.
The Outlook, a rabid supporter of the very sys-
tem that murdered the two Italian rebels, is con-
cerned only with covering the hideous, festering
sores on the body of capitalist "justice," to tie the
working class to the chariot of confidence in the
corrupt institutions of the masters. The duty of
every class-conscious worker, on the other hand,
is ceaselessly to point out that the legal assassina-
tion of Sacco and Vanzetti was entirely in harmo-
ny with the processes of "justice" as it is regularly
dispensed to workers by the courts of their class
foe.

There is no doubt that, there will be more evi-
dence forthcoming in the future that will strike
further blows at the toppling edifice of lies under
which the martyrs were buried. Unfortunately,
nothing can bring the two fighters back to the
ranks of the working class. Their memory must
serve not only as a permanent indictment against
capitalism and an inspiring example of rebels' con-
duct, but as a mute appeal to every worker to take
up and continue the fight for the defense of all
class war prisoners. The case of Tom Mooncy
and Warren K. Billings, buried alive in Califor-
nia's prisons for more than twelve years, is in point.
The over abundant proofs of their innocence, and
the frame-up that almost sent them to the gallows
have been made public long ago. It is the duty
of every worker to aid with all vigor in the fight
for their belated release.

The campaign of International Labor Defense
for Mooney and Billings follows the right line in
proceeding from the standpoint of the class strug-
gle. The essence of the task is to make the case
of Mooney and Billings again. a burning issue of
the labor movement. A militant fight, led and
organized by the classrconscious elements, is the
best assurance for a speedy victory in this fight.
A prerequisite for this is a recognition of the great
importance and potentialities of this issue. The
opinion that the mass interest in this historic case
cannot be revived is profoundly false. It is a
question only of correct tactics and organization
methods and energetic work, The hope of Mooney
and Billings, of the Centralia I.W.W. and of every
other labor prisoner in the country ]ka In the pro
test movement of the masses.

/V\ M^ Semi-Monthly Organ of the Opposition Group in the Workers (Communist) Party of America

I 11 A "It is necessary that every member of the Party should study calmly and with the greatest objectivity, first the substance of the differences of

^B MM^^^^tf opinion, and then the development of the struggles within the Party. Neither the one nor the other can be done unless the documents of both

^" •• ^F witet ar€ published. He who takes somebody's word lor it is a hopeless idiot, who can be disposed of with a simple gesture of the hand." — Lenin

MILITANT

VOL. 1.— NO. 2.

NEW YORK, N. Y.. DECEMBE R 1. 1928.

PRICE ? CENTS

The Party "Discussion" Opens!

AFTER, not a little delay, occasioned by the cus-
tomary cabling back and forth, by cabled ap-
peals of protest by the Foster group which were
rejected over the same cables, the statement of the
Lovestone-Pepper C.E.G. on our declaration and ex-
pulsion was published in the Daily Worker on
November 16th.

The statement of the Party majority covers
much paper, but it had no space to answer the
criticisms of the Opposition on a single point. Our
declaration raised principle questions. They an-
swered with an administrative instruction to the
party to expel all those who share our views.
We said, what everyone knows, that the questions
have never been discussed and we demanded a
discussion. They replied "the discussion is closed."
We said the position of the Russian Opposition
has been correct on all important questions; wc
gave reasons for our'statement and demanded the
right to defend these views in the pre-convention
discussion prescribed by the Party constitution.
They disposed of this.political proposal with legal-
istic references to the decisions of the Communist
International.

Such, in brief, is the political content of the long-
delayed and much labored-over statement of the
Lovestone-Pepper faction which, by grace of Bu-
charin, constitutes the majority of our Central
Executive Committee. We might add that, as an
extraordinary concession on their part (and con-
sidering the fact that the Party members had al-
ready read it in The Militant) they printed our
statement to the Polcom, including even a para-
graph, which we, for Party reasons, had thought
best to eliminate from publication.

They merely recite that the C.I. has decided
against the Trotsky platform — a fact which every-
body knew before— and pass that off for an an-
swer to the principle arguments of the Opposition.
The merits of the decision of the C.I., which all
Communists have a right and duty to discuss and
which is the real point of dispute, are not Oct ended
by one word in the statement. Thus the peda-
gogical overseers show their contemptuous esti-
mate of the Party members. They do not consi-
der it necessary for the Party comrades tp know
for themselves the issues involved. The party
comrades are merely informed of the decisions — ■
discussion is not allowed.

The bureaucrats who rule by decree set up a
conception of the Comintern which Lenin never
knew. Instead of a living body of revolutionar-
ies, generalising from world experience, as Lenin
conceived the Comintern, they want to palm it
off as an institution which decides while the Party
members need only to be informed of the decisions.
The teachings of Marx and Lenin on the cen-
tralized international organization of the Com-
munist workers are completely lost in such a con-
ception.

In this caricature of Leninism the Communist
who knows for himself and defends his position
because he knows is thrown aside in favor of the
one who does not know and asks no questions. In
such a scheme there is no recognition of the pos-
sibilities of errors and no provision for a correction
of them. Tomorrow they will go a step further: — in-
deed they have already started on this path — and
attempt to establish the same, relationship between
the Party members and the C.E.C. of the Party.
Then the Foster group which is now helping to es-
tablish this principle -which denies our right to cri-
ticise the decisions of the Comintern, will be repaid
for "faithful service" in the form of an instruction
to cease criticism of the decisions of the C.E.C.
regardless of the errors contained in |hem — the
greater the error the less the right to criticise.
As for the ordinary worker in the Party ranks
who has no faction behind him, his right to open
his mouth ceased long ago.

"The Communist Party is not a debating socie-
ty". Behind this statement, true enough in itself
all the bureaucrats who fear discussion seek to hide
their incompetence. We Communists are not a

hy James P. Cannon

group of interminable debaters. Neither are we an
army of voting robots. The automatic hand raiser
is no Communist any more than the undisciplined,
endless talker. The one of these conceptions is
just as far away from Leninism as the other. We
hold to the principle of democratic centralism just
as firmly as we reject the suppression of discussion
and the substitution of official commands for ideo-
logical and political leadership.

The great principle questions raised by the Rus-
sian Opposition — questions of decisive importance
for the whole future of the world proletarian re-
volution — have never been fairly and fully dis-
cussed in any party of the Comintern, including
our own party, and, consequently, have been de-<
tided wrongly. This is the essence of the matter,
which the statement of the Lovestone majority ig-
nores entirely, because it is fatal for their whole
case.

The party comrades do not know the issues from
all sides and cannot know them for the reason that
the material of the Opposition was not published
— it was suppressed. There has been no real and
serious discussion in the party—it was prohibited.
The Communist militants who have had the op-
portunity to read the documents and learn the
truth are not allowed to speak within the party—
they are expelled.

The Foster group which had the honor of car-
rying the "information" against us to Lovestone
and Pepper, received their reward in the statement:
a condescending pat on the back, which was no
doubt appreciated, even if it was accompanied
by a rough box on the ear, to say nothing of a
number of boots to the bottom.

The difficulties of the Foster group arise out
of the contradictions in its position. It is claimed

Swabeck, Glotzer Join
Opposition; Expelled

The forces of the Opposition were immeas-
urably strengthened last Saturday by the for-
mal adhesion of a powerful group of ■Com-
munist fighters in Chicago, headed by Arne
Swabeck and Al Glotser. In a statement
addressed to all Party and League members
these two comrades, the outstanding Chicago
leaders in the Party and Young Workers
League, declared their unconditional support
of the platform of the Opposition and their
solidarity with all comrades expelled for these
views. On the presentation of their statement
at a* meeting of the Chicago D.E.C. on Satur-
day,. November 24, they were also declared ex-
pelled from the Party together with comrades
Mike Zalisko, Sidney Borgeson and Helen
Judd. Wholesale expulsions of other com-
rades in Chicago are being prepared. The
Chicago membership has been profoundly
shaken by these evrnts.

Comrade Swabeck, as is well known, is one
of the foremost American Communists. He is
one of the founders cf the Party and has been
a member of the Central Executive Committee
■ for many years. He is the leader or' the Left
Wing in the Chicago Federation of Labor and
was the director of the mining campaign of
the Party . " He was District Organizer of the
Chicago district from the days of the under-
ground Paity till his removal by the Love-
stone faction last year. Comrade Glotzer is
one of the outstanding leaders of the Young
Workers League and a member of its National
Executive Committee.

Other sensational developments along this
line are expected within the coming week.

that Christ wrought miracles but we do not be-
lieve that even he ever succeeded in riding two
horses going in opposite directions at the same time.
The Foster group took a forward step when it
united with us in the fight against the right wing
(joint fight against the Panken "maneuver", com-
mon platform at the February and May Plenary
meetings of the Central Executive Committee,
common platform on "the Right Danger in the
American Party", etc.) Its failure to develop the
international implications of our common opposi-
tion stand, its failure to see that the problems of
our party and the fight against its right wing lea-
dership arc indissolubly bound up with the Bolshe-
vik fight of the Russian Opposition, arrested the
forward development of the Foster group and pre-
pared the ground for its disintegration. Its pitiful,
if shc'rt-lived, attempt to outdo the opportunist
leadership in demagogy agfa'inst the Russian. Oppo-
sition and against us on|y sharpened its contradic-
tions and made its whole position politically impos-
sible. Those who do not stand clearly on princi-
ples, foresee their implications and understand their
logic are bojund to play a sorry role when principle
questions are placed on the agenda.

The resolution of the District Executive Com-
mittee of New York, under the direct inspiration
of the Central 'Executive Committee majority, de-
mands that the Foster opposition repudiate the
statement on "the Right Danger in the American
Party" if it really wants to fight "Trotskyism"
and logically so. The Lovestone-Pepper group of
opportunists represents on an American scale what
the opportunist opponents and' calumniators of the
Russian opposition represent on a Russian and in-
ternational scale. The Lovestone faction leaders
are merely the American representatives of the an-
ti-Trotsky faction in the Communist International
and have been imposed upon the party by it. They
are not and can never be leaders of our party in
their own right. On the other hand, the course of
the American Opposition, insofar as it develops
consistently, merges with the path of the Russian
Opposition. This is the logic of the whole situa-
tion. Between these two stools there is no place
to' sit.

The Foster group, by its present policy, weakens
itself, strengthens the right wing leadership and
confuses the party. They take part, shame-faced
and utterly contemptible, in the obscene lynching
campaign against us, saying we have no right to op-
pose the decision of the Communist International
en the Russian questions. The right wing leaders
retort: "Very good. We appreciate your help in
lynching and expelling Communists by wholesale,
but the same rule you are supporting applies to
you also. You have no right to oppose the deci-
sion oJ" the Communist International on the Ameri-
can question. Your own expulsion is next cjn the
agenda'"

And why should they not speak this way? Is
there sonic secret paragraph of the statutes of the
Communist International which says that the de-
cision on the Russian question is sacred and may
not even be discussed under penalty oif expulsion,
while the decision on the American question may
be opposed with impunity?' These decisions arc to
a large extent bound together. For our part we are
against both and openly say so.

We have no doubt that the overwhelming maj-

crity of the supporters of the Foster group- above

all its proletarian and non-bureaucratized section
-■- will soon find the right way out of the pres-
ent dilemma. In the interest of the party, the
sooner the better. The first step on this path will
be to break with the tactic of trailing after the
expulsion policy of the right wing splitter:: and to
take up the struggle against it.

The statement of the CEC majority says: "We
feel confident- -on the basis of our experiences
during the attack of the government in 1919-20,
when the party was driven underground — that the
core cf the party and its leadership are sound."
This can be said only with certain qualifica-

Page .4.

THE MILITANT

December 1, lft2$.

The Party "Discussion" Opens!

CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE
;taons which, in the interest of historical truth
must be mentioned. It is true that the core of the
party membership, the expelled Communists among
them, held their ground in those days of trial. We,
-with them, stood at our posts and faced the raids.
the arrests arid indictments, as the record shows.
"This is true'also of a section off the present leader-
«hip. But others of the present leadership—^
-and not the least prominent ones — played the
ipart of cowards for whom the record of that
tjme of trial by fire is a record not of glory but of
*hame. Those for wh&trt history holds no honor
should not write it.
s The statement of Lovestone and Pepper entire'
ly evades discussion of the principle issues raised
by our stand for the Russian Opposition. It sets
iip the false theory of the Comintern as a bureau'
cratic machine. It makes unfortunate reference tc
party history where silence would have, been wi"*-
But it is the section of the statement dealing' wit!.
the qtiestioTi of the "Right Danger" which most
cjeariy and obviously startrips the whole 'document
■»! the work of cyriicai charlatans— -of people who
imagine that facts may be turned upside down,
that, black rfky be made to appear white, and that
any kind of fraud may be perpetrated if only one
lias a monopolistic control of the party press and
if nobody's memory reaches back further than, a
month or two. With an ironical grin the ■opportu-
nists declare war on opportunism; the bureaucrats
demajided >Jthe extermination pi btureaucratism.
Otir document on "The Flight Danger in Ameri-
can Party" which sums tip a long struggle against
the cjjtfjiartumst policies of the present leadership
of our party, deals quite fully and adequately with
this Question", as will be seen by a study of it. It
explains the economic and political basis of the
Right danger in the present period arid' proves
the opportunist line of the Lovesto'ne group in its
general conceptions and concretely jn every field
of party w«J;k.

Our. document does not rest on general asser'
tions. Facts arid documents from the party records
are cited in each rase — minutes, resolutions, ar'

tides, speeches, etc. One need only refer to the
support of the socialist faker, Panken, in the elec-
tion last Fall; the motion to send coimrades into
the Socialist Party to "bore from within"; the re-
fusal to support a National Left Wing Conference
in the Miners 1 Union until the strike was a year
old and had spent its force; the opposition to the
policy cK organising the unorganised into new
unions — to mention only a few examples of the
systematic opportunism of the party leadership —
cited in our document — to show that. the struggle
within the party, which now takes on a sharper
form has ndft been waged over trifles.

Our "factionalism" has consisted of a stubborn
daily fight against the opportunist course of the
majority in the above-mentioned and in all other
cases. In the Political Committee, at the February
Plenum, at the May Plenum and at the Sixth
World Congress the Opposition fought on this line
and proved its indictment of the Right wing lead-
ers to the hilt.

The present declaration of the C.E.C. majority
on the question of the "Right Danger" must be*
taken together with its previous attitude. Before
the Sixth Congress and at the Sixth Congress they
denied the existence of such a danger. They form-
ed a close unity with all the extreme right ele-
ments in the party and defended all their own
opportunist mistakes. They claimed that America
was "exempted" from the International situation
in this respect.

Under pressure of cur hammering, our analysis,
our elucidation of the problems, the fact of the
Right danger was indisputably established and was
formally recognized by the Sixth Congress, It
might be supposed that such an outcome would
create an impossible 'situation for "leaders" whose
calculations had all been directly opposite, who had
been following a Right Wing line and firing only
against the left. But our adepts in the art of po-
litical legerdemain were not even embarrassed.
They served the whole problem for themselves by
turning around and immediately starting to pull
their own right wing rabbits out of our hat.
They forgot, and they expect the party to for-

get, everything they have done and said and writ'
ten for more than a year. All the opportunist
blunders (arid worse .■■than blunders) which they
have committed or condoned, which we criticised
and which they defended or denied, are now ad-
mitted, and attributed to, us as — "Trotskyism, as
outright opportunism."

Let the party member who claims the right to
read arid think for himself turn to our document
on "The Right Danger in the American Party",
submitted to the Sixth Congress of the Commu-
nist International at a time when the opportunist
leaders were still denying the existence of such a
problem. He will find there a catalogue of all
the features of Opportunism in our party which arc
cited in the C.E.C. statement (and many more
which it still tries to conceal) with documentary
proof in each case of the responsibility of the au-
thors of the C.E.C. statement for these systematic
opportunist crimes and mistakes.

The Lovestone-Pepper group of leaders, like
their counter- parts in othen parties of the Comin-
tern, like all opportunists and bureaucrats, rely on
suppression of discussion and expulsion to main-
tain themselves in power. They want a party with-
out any democratic rights of the members. They
want a party with a sterile inner life. They want a
party where the voice of the proletarian commu-
nist will be silenced. They want a party of passive
hand- raisers at the bottom and a petty-bourgeois
clique of insolent bureaucrats at the top.

This is the real meaning of our expulsion, of
the mass expulsion of rank and file Communists,
of the vile calumny heaped upon all those who
dare to stand up and challenge them.

The fight against such a regime in the party
and in the Communist International is an urgent
revolutionary task. The proletarian masses
in the party must awaken and take up this fight.
They must break through the bureaucratic crust
which has formed on top of the party and restore
a normal party life in accord with Lenin's teach-
ing. To help bring about this awakening we ad-
dressed our statement to the Political Committee
with a full realization of the consequences. With
the help of the Communist workers in the ranks
of the party we will continue to fight along this
line until our aims are achieved.

Wholesale Expulsions from the Party Begin

MINNEAPOLIS

Copy of a Telegram received from Minneapolis, dated
iNov. 1.8, 1928 : "Thirteen Party comrades and three League
members we're expelled tddaf at the membership meeting
for voting (or our rsolvtion. Letter follows, (signed)
VINCENT- R. DUNNE.

This its in addition to the suspension on November 14-
of five members of the District Executive Committee of
the Minneapolis district, Vincent R. Dunne, .Carl Skog-
Jund, Q. R. Votaw, Oscar Coover and William Watkins
for demanding the reinstatement of Cannon, Abern and
Shachtmari into the Party. As is well known these are
*the leading comrades of the- Minnesota district whose work
in the- trade unions. has been primarily responsible for the
achievements of the Party there during the recent years.
Tho group of expelled proletarian Communists in Minne-
sota includes 5 railroad workers, 4 factory workers, 2
laborers, an electrician, a carpenter, a machinist, and a,
printer.

KANSAS CITY

Two members of the D.E.C. at Kansas City A. A. Bueh-
ler and Sana Kassen, were expelled on Nsvember 8 for
declaring themselves opposed to the expulsion of Cannon,
Abern, arid Shachtrnan. fioth are pioneer American Com-
munists, having been original members of the left wing
group fdrriied in Kansas City during the war, which cap-
tured the local of the S. P., published a left wing we'ekly
papcr, and became the local of the Communist Labor Party
on' its formation in 1919.

PHILADELPHIA Y. W. (C.) L.
Three members of the Young Workers League, Morgen-
stern, Lankin and Goodman were expelled from the League
in, Philadelphia oh Novembe* 4 on the same grounds. On
Hovernber 10, a few days after their expulsion, comrades
Morgenstern and Lankin took part in a demonstration
against imperialist War and for the release of John Porter
before the War Dept. building in Washington. They
were arrested and have been confined in jail ever since.
Comrade Morgenstern writes from jail as follows:

CABARET AND DANCE

for the benefit of

The MILITANT

Organ of the Communist Opposition

SATURDAY EV E, DECEMBER 1st, 1928.

323 East 79th Street, New York

Adttiseum: 50c. m advance

at the door 60c.

District Workhouse, Occoquan, Va.
'Dear Comrade Cannon: —

"As you already know we are in jail for parading
around the War Dept. for John Porter. We are still do-
ing this revolutionary work. They call us counter-revolu-
tionaries, but that doesn't make it so. I heard that you
comrades are keeping up the fight and doing good work.
It makes me feel great. With comradely greetings,

BERNARD MORGAN."
P. S. — Note name for correspondence.

CANADA

Comrade Maurice Spector, member of the ECCl from
Canada, whose suspension and removal from all posts was
already reported, has since been expelled.

NEW YORK CITY
Comrade M. L. Malkin,, a rank and file Communist
fighter in the furriers' Union, one of the defendants in
the famous Mineola case under sentence of 2Vi to 5 years
in prison, was expelled by the N. Y. DEC on Nov. 19,
1928. Charges are pending and trials beginning against
other comrades in all parts of the courrtry.

The "Ideological" Campaign

The "Ideological Campaign" is on in full swing
Resolutions supporting the C.E.C. in its expulsion
of Communists from the Party are being adopted
in various places.

One street nucleus in Pittsburgh, without defin-
irig or explaining a word of a single fundamental
issue raised by the Opposition Communists, man'
ages to use such expressions as counter-revolution-
ary", "social democratic", "menshevik", "rene-
gade", nine times in two sentences totaling 19 lines.

The resolution of the Kansas District Commit-
tee does not mention the expulsion of two pioneer
Communist fighters, Buehler and Kassen, from the
D.E.C. and the Party for fighting the expulsions,
but does manage to betray its complete lack of
knowledge of the position of the Russian Opposi-
tion. For instance, it accuses the Opposition of
stating that Socialist construction in the Soviet
Union is a myth, "when all facts available prove
the steady development of the socialist produc-
tion." Well, who says otherwise? The issue is:
Can the development proceed faster? To what ex-
tent? By what means and on what basis is the so-
cialist economy to be developed further? What are
the limitations? Can there be the development of

a complete system of socialism, as the Draft Pro-
gram of the Comintern states, without the aid of
the proletarian victory in one or more European
counries?

What does the Russian Opposition say on this
point?

"The domestic problem is, by strengthening our-
selves with a proper class policy, a proper inter-re-
lation of the working-class with the peasant, to move
forward as fast as possible on the road of socialist
construction. The interior resources of the Soviet
Union are enormous and make this entirely possi-
ble (Our emphasis). In using the world Capitalist
market for this purpose, we bind up our fundamental
historical calculations with further development of
the world-proletarian revolution. Its victory in cer-
tain leading countries will break the ring of the capi-
talist encirclement, and deliver us from our heavy
burden. It will enormously strengthen us in the
sphere of technique accelerate our entire development
in the city and village, in factory and school. It
will give us the possibility of really creating social-
ism..." (The Platform of tlie Russian Opposition pp.
86-87, "The Real Situation in Russia", Harcourt,
Brace and Co.).
We quote the above now only to call at-
tention to the absurd manner in which "Trotsky-
ism" is being 'discussed" without for one moment
examining the actual economic, tactical and poli-
tical proposals of the Russian Opposition. Un-
fortunately they have been largely suppressed.
But through the columns of Tke Militant the
American Communists will have the opportunity
to judge for themselves. Then we are confident
the resolutions will change their tone and char-
acter. — Martin Abern.

THE MILITANT

Published twice a month by the Opposition Group in the

Workers (Communist) Party of America
Address all mail to: P. O. Sox 1 20, Madison Square
Station, New York, N. Y.

Publishers address at 340 East 19th Street, New York,
N. Y. ■ — Telephone: Gramercy 3411.

Subscription rite: $1.00 per year. Foreign, $1.?0
5c per copy Bundle rates, 3c per copy.

Editor

James P. Cannon

Associate Editors

Martin Abern
Max Shachtrnan

VOL. 1.

DF.CKMBKR I, 1928

N T o. 2.

Application for entry as second class matter pending at vhe Post
Office i>t. New York, N. Y.

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THE MILITANT

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The Results of the Election

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r IE victory in the election of the Republican
Party and its candidate, Hoover, signifies the
still growing power — accompanied though it is by
sharpening contradictions — of American capitalism,
and the grip of the main Party of the bourgeoisie
on the masses. This power was sufficient for the
Republicans to break through the. "Solid South"
for the first time since the Civil War, aided by
those irresistible economic forces which have been
undermining the social-political basis of the tra-
ditional Democratic Party for the past decades.

The election of Hoover is undoubtedly a victory
for the bourgeoisie. But to become fascinated by
the "atmosphere" of this victory, to be overcome
by the dominance of its reality, and to see nothing
else, is to fall victim to the hopelessness, fear and
petty-bourgeois defeatism which characterizes the
Nation, or the New York World. Unfortunately,
such a tendency exists in the Party and is even
given expression in the official Party press. In
the article by John Pepper, Class Analysis of the
Election's, Daily Worker, November 10, 1928 he
says "The New York World is right in stating that
the victory of Hoover was 'a conservative land-
slide,' that it was the result of 'a deep-seated aver-
sion to change.' It was a vote for the present 're-
publican prosperity'."

This is the attitude which tips its hat politely
in ten lines to the increased vote of- the Commu-
nist ticket, stands in breathless awe before the
colossal strength of the bourgeoisie, and assumes
that it has thereby given a "class analysis" of
the results of the election. It is an attitude which
we have encountered many times before, which
sees only the strength and forward strides of the
enemy on the one hand and the miserable weak-
ness, powerlessness and backwardness of the work-
ers on the other.

Foitunately, an analysis of the elections gives
us no cause to adopt such a viewpoint. Let us
consider the fortunes of the arch-demagogue
Smith.

To speak unconditionally of the "defeat or
Smith" is to overlook completely the nature of his
popular vote, which was larger (for the defeated
candidate) than the vote — with the exception of
Coolidge's 1924 vote-^-for .any previous presiden-
tial candidate (victorious or defeated) in Ameri-
can history: more than 16,000,000 votes for a Party
does not bespeak its destruction. From the new
voters who "chose" the president this year, Smith
received at least as much support as did Hoover.
While Smith received a relative set-back in the
Bourbon reactionary South, he made big gains in
the industrial North, particularly in the cities
where the industrial proletariat is concentrated.
Smith had a majority of 55,000 votes out of a
total of 6,795,000 votes that were cast in the fol-
lowing fourteen key centers: New York, Newark,
Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, San Francisco, Los
Angeles, Baltimore, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pitts-
burgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and Detroit. Smith
inherited, to a far greater extent than Hoover, the
sentiment of the agrarian "revolt" of the North-
west which rallied so futilely around La Follette in
the last election. Neither can a serious politician
overlook the fact that in the very heart of the tex-
tile crisis, Massachusetts, Smith defeated Hoover,
carrying, in particular, New Bedford and Fall
River; that Smith made powerful advances par-
ticularly in the sphere of those coal districts" where
the class'Struggle and the industrial depression has
been most severe — Pennsylvania, Ohio Illinois
and Indiana.

Smith's big urban vote, his vote in the seething
agrarian sections, his vote in the smaller industrial
centers, are undoubtedly expressions of the grow
ing discontent of the workers and farmers (as well
as of the petty-bourgeoisie) with the rule of fin-
ance capital, the eight-year orgy of corruption,
brass-browed reaction and imperialist foraging of
the Republican wing of capitalism. Votes which
would otherwise have been cast for the socialist
and even the Communist Parties went this time to
Smith on the basis of the belief " that he has a
good chance to get in."

The fact that this discontent was expressed, with
reactionary consequences and implications, largely
through the Democratic Party, is an index to the
tremendous backwardness of the political con-
sciousness of the masses.

• Does this mean that our thesis regarding the
growing radicalization of the working class is false?
Does it imply that "the masses are becoming more
radical — by going over to the Democratic Party!?"
Nothing of the kind.

By Max iShachtman

Firstly, the vote for Smith was a vague, hesi-
tant, partial, confused result and an inaccurate re-
flection of the growing radicalization.

Secondly, hundreds of thousands and millions of
proletarians, whom the process of radicalization
affects most deeply, and the most exploited sec-
tions of the Negroes, were either disqualified from
voting by the class chicanery of capitalist elec-
tion machinery, or else neglected to vote (foreign-
born workers, unemployed and migratory workers,
workers terrorized in company towns, etc.)

Thirdly, bourgeois elections are never a com-
pletely accurate indication of the sentiment of the
masses. The possibilities for gaining the adherence
of the mass for •day-to-day struggles on concrete is-
sues are practically always far greater than the pos-
sibilities of gaining support in elections. For ex-
ample: not all the workers who responded to the
call for a general strike in England are supporters
of the Labor Party, but are even members of the
Liberal or Tory parties; thousands followed our
leadership in the miners', the Passaic and the New
Bedford strikes, but only hundreds,- or even only
dozens, voted for our ticket; thousands support
our Party in the needle trades unions and fight the
yellow socialists there, and turn about on election
day and vote for the latter "because they have ■ a
good chance to get in" among other reasons,

Fourthly, the sharpened temper of the masses
and their growing class consciousness and readi-
ness to struggle is revealed with far greater clarity
in such movements as the Sacco-Vanzetti fight, the
strike movement which is developing — at present
in isolated forms — throughout the country, and
dozens of other phenomena which have often
been indicated by us.

What were the results for the Party? The gain
in the Party vote and the increased participation
of the Party members in the election fight are un-
deniable. Only a sober estimate of it will enable
the party to go forward in such work, and in
other fields as well. This cannot be done, how-
ever, by the smug and temporarily convenient
method, of unqualified and uncritical self-praise.
One is the method of clarity, the other the method
of self-delusion.

The campaign of the Party partook too much of'
a sectarian-opportunist nature to be labelled a Bol-
shevik campaign. For months prior to the formal
opening of the campaign, the Pepper-Lovestone
leadership of the Party hesitated to take the step
of placing a Communist ticket in the field. Despite
the insistence of the Opposition for a Communist
slate as far back as the February Plenum of the
C.E.C. (see stenogram of Cannon's speech there,
and his article in the Daily Worker demanding the
immediate decision to file our own candidates,)
the Lpvestone majority played around with the
idea of setting up a fake farmer-labor party ticket
or endorsing one — a repetition of Lovestone's ad-
venturous menshevism in 1924 When' he demanded
that our campaign be conducted under the banner
of the "great class Farmer-Labor Party" of St.
Paul (with MacDonald and Bouck) and opposed
the entry of our own Party candidates. So much
valuable time was lost by this vacillation that the
socialist party was enabled to hold its convention,
"draw up its platform and nominate its candidates
weeks before we did.

Other opportunist errors made by the leadership
could be mentioned by the dozens. The election
platform was shot through with ten cent reform-
ism (the abolition of the Senate, curbing the power
of the Supreme Court, etc.); the notorious elec-
tion instructions sent out by the Party office,
which would have made an honest social-democrat
flush with shame, and for which Lovestone and
Stachel, characteristically enough, tried to make
Codkind the scapegoat; the articles in The Com-
munist, Big Business Can't Lose in 1928(!) by Ben
Gitlow which cavalierly dismissed the Communist
Party, and the socialist party, by failing to men-
tion them by so much as one word; the unchecked
series of articles and stories in the Daily Worker
on the Labor Party as a panacea, a series in
which the contribution by I. Amter, the Lovestone
proconsul in the Cleveland district, reached the
peak of opportunism (Daily Worker, August
29, 1928); the organization of the "famous" Bel-
mont County (Ohio) Labor Party 'fake— another
Amter product in the midst; of the Communist

campaign; and so on and so forth ad nauseam.

Further: Such a corrupting atmosphere has been^
created by the factional regime in the Party daat
during the election campaign, the entire leading.
Staff of the Party, (a delegation of twenty!) jih^
eluding the presidential candidate, was sent ;.;tt£.
Moscow, for .tfi.e Sixth Congress of the Cornintern
in the face ..of needs .pi? "the campaign and th«
protests of Cannon and other members of the Op-'
position. In most of the districts, the Lovestone
machine, following its naive policy of trying* td>
manufacture leaders of the masses by decree or 1 "
motion in faction-controlled committees, nominated:
as Party candidates not the outstanding, most capa-
ble and better-known trade union and mass lead-
ers, but the leaders of the faction. From one;
error flow many. In desperation to play up Git-
low as against Foster (see stories and advertise-
ments in the Daily Worker of that period) the
Party was dragged by Lovestone-Pepper into the
shameful, stupid sensationalism of the- Gitlow
"kidnapping" in the Arizona desert, from which,
like the heroine of a similar successful exploit,,
he triumphantly emerged without even a trace" of
sunburn.

The most serious shortcoming of the campaign
was the poor success in linking up with the elec-
tions the struggles of the workers in the coat
fields, textile and similar fields, to mobilize
these, workers, the Negroes, and the unem-
ployed, to the extent that we could reack
them, for active struggle, for demonstrations, to
set them in motion — not only in the polling booths
— to break through the "democratic" veneer and,
parliamentary cretinism of the elections with which
the bourgeoisie plus the socialists stifle the real de-
velopment of revolutionary parliamentary work.

Unless these questions, problems and shortcom-
ings of the Party's campaign are seriously under-
stood, discussed and steps taken to remedy the
weaknesses, the Party will not avoid but repeat
these errors in the future. To do as is done in the
article by Pepper, that is, to review the campaign
and the Party's role in it without a single cri-
tical word, is to mislead the Party membership-
and- lull it into a state of conceit, self-satisfaction
and priggishness.

A word is necessary on the role and future of
the Labor Party movement which Pepper fails
even to mention. For him it is an easy matter either
to "discoverer" or "disperse" a movement with a
wave of the hand. In this election, the North-
western remnants of the big movement that de-
veloped in 1922-24 trailed, miserably behind- the
big bourgeois parties. Despite a previous decision
of the Comintern to advocate a labor'party and not
a farmer-labor party, the Party has still continued
its flirtations, "maneuvers" and high politics with
the Shipstead-Mahoney Farmer-Labor Party gang
in Minnesota. The opportunist errors of a number
of the, best Communist workers in that district
flowed inevitably out of the essentially false theory
of a two class party, a morass Out of which only
weeds can grow.

The future of the labor party cannot be guar-
anteed by mathematical calculations. For our part,
however, without wasting any sympathy on the
absurd theory of its "inevitability", we see no rea-
son to put aside the perspective of a labor party
development in the working class movement. A
possible basis for a mass labor party exists and will
grow in the development and strengthening of the-
class unions which are now being formed in the
coal, textile and needle trades industries, and which,
must be formed in others.

The election, finally, demonstrated that it is only
the Communist Party that represents the interests
of the oppressed millions in the United States arid
its colonies. The miserable attempts of the so-
cialist party parsons and peanut-stand owners to*
compete for the petty-bourgeoisie and the labor
aristocracy with an expert demagogue like Smith
were only an indication of how far thi& little yel-
low sect has travelled from the days when it had
at least a revolutionary core.

Its departure from everything healthy and
radical in the labor and revolutionary movement
leaves ---the Commttnist Party «a» open field. It*
task is to rid itself *of 'the opportunist, adventurers
and corrupt factionalist3 who have usurped its
leadership. The fundamental healthiness of our
party, its proletarian composition, its basic pro-
gram are a guarantee that despite the difficulties,
the errors, and the shortcomings it will win the
masses and fulfill its revolutionary missioa.

Page >

THE MILITANT

December 1, 1928.

Deceit

THE DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE COM INI

CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE

The matter stands quite differently in the new
draft program of the Comintern. In accordance
with the revisionist evolution of its authors since
1924, the draft, as we have seen, chooses the
directly opposite path. But the solution of the
question of Socialism in one country in one way or
another determines trre significance of the
WHOLE draft as a Marxian or a revisionist
document.

Of course the draft program carefully, persist'
ently and severally puts forward, emphasizes and
explains the difference between the Communist
and reformist formulation of questions.

Marx, Engels and Lenin himself had said prior to task too short a term was set at the beginning of

that. In 1915 Lenin said: 1918. It is this purely pratical "miscalculation'" that

,„ . ,11,1 Lenin derided at the Fourth Congress of the Corn-
Uneven economic and political development is im h he y « f j. h h
an unconditional law of capitalism. From here it ' , ,, _ ct ,, , 7 *^" OJI "«"
follows that the triumph of Socialism is, to begin "jan we are now - But we had a correct view
with, possible in several or even in only one individ' of the general perspective and did not for a mo-
ual capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of ment believe that it is possible to set up a corn-
that country, having expropriated the capitalists and n |„ f . "C,-w-;, l, - -* „_4~„" ,-„ *k„ ,-„ c *. i
ORGANIZED SOCIALIST PRODUCTION, would plet \ boci J allst ™™* in the course of twelve
be up in arms against the rest of the capitalist world, months, ana in a backward country at that,
attracting oppressed classes of the other countries The attainment of this main and final aim— the
to its side, causing insurrections in those countries construction of a Socialist society— was left by
against the capitalists and the acting in case of need, t • . ., , , . ' . '
even with military power against the exploiting class- L ^ to th y ee whole generations— ourselves, Our
es and their governments."— (Vol. 13, page 133. children and our grandchildren.
Our emphasis). T . .

Is it not clear that in his article of 1915 Lenin

What did Lenin have in mind? That the victory meant by the organization of "Socialist produc-
fiut these assurances do not solve the problem. of Socialism) that iS; the establishment of the tion," not the setting up of a Socialist society but
We have a situation something like that of a ship dictatorship of the pro l e tariat, is possible at first an immeasurably more elementary task which has
which is supplied and even overloaded with in one country> which> because of this very fact> a , read been ^ , ug *
numerous Marxian mechanisms and appliances will stand up against capitallsm . The proletarian Otherwise one would have to come to the absurd
while^ts mainsail is raised so that it is purposely State> in order to be able to resist an attack and conchsion that accordin t0 Lenini the proletarian
opened for all revisionist and reformist winds to underta ke a revolutionary offensive on its own, -party, having captured power, "postpones" the
Those who have learned from the -experience of will at first have to "organize Socialist production", revolutionary war until the third generation
the last three decades and particularly from the it e>> it wi il have to organize the operation of the c , , . , ., . ,
marvelous experience of China during the recent factories taken from the capitalists. That is all. ^-that is, truly said— is the position of the
years have learned to understand the powerful The "victory of Socialism" was, as is well-known, ™™ stronghold of the new theory as far as the
dialelctfcal inter-dependence between the class f irst accomplished in Russia, and the First Work- l915 1 u <f atl0n 1S concerned However, it is even
struggle and programatical Party documents, will ers' State, in order to defend itself against world m ° re sad when w , e know that Lenin wrote this
understand when we say that the new revisionist intervention, had first of all "to organize Socialist P MsaRe not m a PP llcatl0n to Russia. He spoke of
sail can turn to. naught all the safety appliances o'f production." By the victory of Socialism in one £uro P c m contradistinction to Russia. This follows
Marxism and Leninism. That is why we are com- country, Lenin consequently did not cherish the Ta-.a.V content ° f * he T q uot fd Passage
pelled to dwell in greater detail on this cardinal fantasy of a self-sufficing Socialist society, and in dedicated to the ^ uestl °" of t , he United States of
question which wilt for a long time determine the a backward country at that, but something that f^T' a r° ^T S ****?? Potion at

development and destiny of the Communist Inter- was much more realistic, namely, that which the V^^LAS? ™!™rf tf' November 20 >
national "" 1 " """ "

October revolution has accomplished in our coun- 19H ' Lenin wrote s P eciall y on Russia > sa V in g :

4.— THE THEORETICAL TRADITION OF
THE PARTY.

try in the first period of its existence-
Does this, perhaps, need to be proven? There
are so many proofs for that, that the only diffi-
culty we have is in choosing the best.

In the theses on war and peace (January 7,

The. draft program used with deliberate inten-
tion the expression "victory of Socialism in one X918) Lenin spoke of the

country" so as to secure the external, purely ver- „ T . . . ArT , T _ A „_

bal identification of its text with Lenin's article 3^^^ JORfflE V&TORYOF

Of .1915, which has so ruthlessly, not to say enmuv SOCIALISM in Russia . . .—Vol. 1?, page 64).

ally, been misused during the discussion on the

question of building up a Socialist society in one At the beginning of the same year, i. e., 1918.
country The draft employs the same method Lemn wrote in hls artlcle entltled " As t0 Left
elsewhere by "alluding" to Lenin's words as a Win § Childishness and Petty Bourgeois Tenden-
confirmation. Such is the "methodology of the cies '" directed against Buchann, the following:
draft."

Of the great wealth of Marxian literature and
the treasure of Lenin's works — directly ignoring
everything that Lenin said and wrote and every-
thing that he did, ignoring the Party pro-
gram and the program of the Young Com'
mtinist League, ignoring the opinions express-

"The task of the proletariat follows obviously from
this actual state of affairs. That task is a relentless
heroic revolutionary struggle against the monarchy
(the slogans of the January conference of 1912 —
'three stages'), a struggle which would attract all
democratic masses, that is, first and foremost the
peasants. At the same time a ruthless struggle must
be waged against chauvinism, a struggle FOR THE
SOCIALIST REVOLUTION IN EUROPE in al-
liance with its proletariat . . . The war crisis HAS
STRENGTHENED the economic and political fac-
tors driving the petty bourgeoisie, including the
peasantry, towards the Left. Therein lies the ob-
pective basis of the absolute possibility of a victory
of the DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION in Russia.
That the OBJECTIVE CONDITIONS FOR A
SOCIALIST REVOLUTION HAVE FULLY
MATURED IN WESTERN EUROPE there is no
need to prove. This was recognized before the war
by all influential Socialists of all advanced countries."
— (Vol. 13, page 212. Our emphasis).

"If, let us say, State capitalism could be estab-
lished here within six months, that would be a
tremendous achievement and the surest guarantee
that within a year SOCIALISM will be definitely

established and- have become invincible." — (Vol. 18, Thus, in 1915, Lenin clearly spoke of a demo-
part 2, page 8. Our emphasis). cratic revolution in Russia and of a Socialist Rev-

How could Lenin set such a short period for the °J ution «» Western Europe* In passing, as of some-
, , ,. _ . -, - , - . 'definite establishment" of Socialism? What ™ in S whl ^ h 1S self-evident, he mentions that in

ed by all Party leaders, without exception, in the material-productive and social content did he put Western Europe, distinct from Russia, in contra-
the entire epoch of the October Revolution,' j nto thes e words 7 distinction to Russia, the conditions for a Socialist

when the question stood categorically (and cat- T his question will at once appear in a different evolution have "fully matured." But this quo-
egoncally to what extent!) ignoring what the K ht if recali that on April 2 Q, 1918, Lenin tation-one of many-which squarely and directly

authors of the program themselves, Stalin and said in hig report to the All-Russian Central Ex- «*«* <? Russia the authors of the new theory,
Buchann, said up to 1924 inclusive— altogether ectJtive Committee of the Soviet Government; the authors of the draft program, simply ignore
two quotations from Lenin, one from his article

"It is hardly to. be expected that our next genera

as they ignore hundreds of other passages, as they

■ ,,',,, -,,,,, , - -,, t ig n o re all of Lenin's works. Instead of taking

tic*, which Will be more highly developed will ef- notice f thi h h fc h

feet a complete transition to Socialism. — (Ibid., , . ,' /' T , , >"-*-"> >-<""- »"""'"

page '240).

on the United States of Europe written in 1915

and another from his unfinished posthumous _

publication on cooperation written in 1923, have p^ wo)"'*"* "" " ai " Al "" 11 "" """«"»■"• v — ., pagga g e w j 1 j ch re f ers to Western Europe, ascribe

been used in defense of the theory of national ^ ^ ,,-, t ^ to it a meaning which it cannot and does not mean

socialism which was created to meet the exigencies ° n December 3, 1919, at the Congress of Com- to have> attach tMs ascribed meaning to R uss i a , a

of the struggle against so-called "Trotskyism" at munes and Artels > Lenin s P oke even more defin ' country which the passage did not have in mind,

the end of 1924 or the beginning of 1925. Every- ite 'y> sa y in § : and on this "foundation' they build their new

We know that we cannot establish a Socialist theory.
system at the present time. It will be well if our ,

children and perhaps our grandchildren will be able What was Lenin s position on this question im-

to establish it." — (Vol. 16, page 398). mediately before the October period? On leaving

In which of these two cases was Lenin right? Switzerland after the February revolution in 1917,

thing that disproves these two quotations of a few

Iines—-the. whole of Marxism and Leninism — is

eimply set aside. These two . artificially snatched

out and grossly and epigonically misinterpreted

quotations are taken as a basis of the new purely

revisionist theory which is unbounded from the Was it when he spoke of the "definite establish

viewpoint of its political consequences. We are ment of Socialism" within twelve months, or

witnessing the efforts to graft, by scholastic and when he left it, not for our children but our grand-

BOphist methods, to the Marxian trunk, an abso- children to establish the "socialist order."?

lately alien branch which will be grafted but will Lenin was right in both cases for he had in mind

inexorably poison and kill the whole tree. two entirely different and incommensurable stages

At the Seventh Plenum of the E. C. C. I., Stalin of Socialist construction . p . ,. „ '.

declared (not for the first time): B ^ the definite establishment of Socialism in

the first case Lenin meant not the building up of
The question of Socialist economic construction a Socialist society within a year or within "several

in" one' country was for the FIRST time advanced in .v „ „ ..- . • i \-a „„* „„„„ (-■u„«. *u„' „i _.-,»-

the Party hy Lenin in 191*." (Stenographic report "Op* 8 ' , tMt 1S ' he did "Ot mean that the classes

of the Seventh Plenum. Our emphasis). will be done away with, that the contradictions

. . between town and country will be eliminated; he

Thus it is admitted here that prior to 1915 the meant the RESTORATION OF PRODUCTION

question of Socialism in one country was unknown, jj^j THE FACTORIES IN THE HANDS OF

Stalin and Buchann do not venture to encroach THE PROLETARIAN STATE, and the possibil-

tipon the entire Marxian tradition on the question ity t0 exchange products between town and coun-

Of the wternationa character of the proletarian try T he very shortness of the term is in itself a

tevokitxbn. We will take note of this. sure ^ to an un d ers t a nding of tfte whole per- All elements of the question are contained in

However, let us see what Lenin said "for the spective. these few lines. If Lenin believed in 1915, in time

first time" in 1915 in contradistinction to what Of course even for this limited and immediate of war and reaction, as they try to convince us

Lenin addressed a letter to the Swiss workers in
which he declared:

"Russia is a peasant country, it is one of the most
backward countries of Europe. Socialism cannot be
IMMEDIATELY triumphant there. But the peas-
ant character of the country with the huge funds
of land in the hands of the aristocracy and land'
owners, CAN, on the basis of the experiences of
190*, give a tremendous impetus to the bourgeois
democratic revolution in Russia and make our rev-
olution a PRELUDE to the world Socialist revolu-
tion, a STEP towards it . . . The Russian prole-
tarian party cannot by its own forces VICTORIOUS-
LY COMPETE the Socialist revolution. But it can
give the Russian revolution dimensions such as will
create the most favorable conditions for it, such as
will in a certain sense BEGIN it. It can facilitate
matters for the entrance into a decisive battle or.
the part of its MAIN and most reliable ally, the
EUROPEAN and American socialist proletariat." —
(Vol. 14, part 2, page 407).

FOREWORD

With this *sue The Mili-
tant prints fie second in-
stallment of "The Draft
Program of the Commu-
nist Intemaiibn: A Cri-
ticism of Fundamentals"
by L. D. frotsky. This
document, a masterpiece of
Marxist-Leninjst literature was
submitted by comrade Trot-
sky to the Si«h World Con-
gress of the Ciommunist In-
ternational which finally
adopted the draft program
drafted by comrades Bucha-
rin and Stalfc, without any
important changes. The en-
tire validity of this timely
and fundamental criticism re-
mains in sp e of the fact
that it was Jtept from the
Congress ape iever discussed
by the delegates. The sole
attention accorded it was its
distribution to members of
the Prograi| Commission
and a report on the docu-
ment to the j"Senioren-Kon-
vent" of the jCongress which
immediately fsettled" the is-
sue without discussion.

A rigid f.ontrol on this
document "sta established
forthwith .? d the few
copies of the jcument which
were distrib ited were re-
called by the ^secretariat. Our
publication U an authentic
copy which *e have just re-
ceived. It d^als chiefly with
the role of I American Im-
perialism andjthe prospect of
new revolutionary situations,
the revisiohis!! theory of "So-
cialism in on^ country," with
the Chinese (revolution and
its lessons, arid with the for-
mation of wdrkers and peas-
ants parties Shich Trotsky,
in line with Ljenin, condemns
in principle. -Trotsky's com-,
ment on thtf "Third Party
Alliance" with La Follette,
the fight agajinst which was
led by him, 4-ill be especially
interesting to 1 American com-
munists. Tlje entire docu-
ment will beyprinted in full
consecutively jin this and the
forthcoming issues of The
Militant without any changes,
Its basic importance for the
international » revolutionary
movement anjl the unanswer-
able correctness of its posi-
tion on the burning problems
of the Comrjiunist Interna-
tional make is an invaluable
contribution t\ the Bolshevik
literature of nir period.

— Editor.

sl
ir
rr
tl

v.

q

a:

i:

6:
e

E

IE MILITANT

December 1, 1928.

December 1, 1928.

THE MILIT.C

M3GRAM OF THE COMINTERN

A CRITICISM OF
FUNDAMENTALS

B

id Lenin himself had said prior to
xnin said:

conomic and political development is
rrial law of capitalism. From here it'
lie triumph of Socialism is, to begin
in several or even in only one individ-
country. The victorious proletariat of
having expropriated the capitalists and
) SOCIALIST PRODUCTION, would
: against the rest of the capitalist world,
jiressed classes of the other countries
Rising insurrections in those countries
pitalists and the acting in case of need,
Jary power against the exploiting class-
governments." — (Vol. 13, page 133.

jin have in mind? That the victory
,t is, the establishment of the
;he proletariat, is possible at first
which, because of this very fact,
gainst capitalism. The proletarian
to be able to resist an attack and
•evolutionary offensive on its own,
: to "organise Socialist production",
e to organise the operation of the
from the capitalists. That is all.
Socialism" was, as is well-known,
:d in Russia, and the First Work'
der to defend itself against world
d first of all "to organize Socialist
y the victory of Socialism in one
consequently did not cherish the
•-sufficing Socialist society, and in
mtry at that, but something that
realistic, namely, that which the
ion has accomplished in our coun-
period of its existence.

rhaps, need to be proven? There
Dofs for that, that the only diffi-
in choosing the best,
on war and peace (January 7,
)ke of the

af a certain period of time, AT LEAST
[ONTHS, FOR THE VICTORY OF
in Russia .. .—Vol. 15, page 64).

ling of the same year, i. e., 1918.
his article entitled "As to Left
ess and Petty Bourgeois Tenden-
gainst Bucharin, the following:

say, State capitalism could be estab-
within six months, that would be a
chievement and the surest guarantee

year SOCIALISM will be definitely
d' have become invincible." — (Vol. 18,
8. Our emphasis).

:nin set such a short period for the
ishment" of Socialism? What
ive and social content did he put

5?

will at once appear in a different
ill that on April 29, 1918, Lenin
rt to the All-Russian Central Ex'
:ee of the Soviet Government:

y co. be expected that our next genera-
ill be more highly developed, will ef-
ete transition to Socialism." — (Ibid.,

3, 1919, at the Congress of Com'
Is, Lenin spoke even more defin'

that we cannot establish a Socialist
present time. It will be well if our

Derhaps our grandchildren will be able

"—(Vol. 16, page 398).

;hese two cases was Lenin right?
: spoke of the "definite establish'
ism" within twelve months, or
lot for our children but our grand-
ilish the "socialist order."?
it in both cases for he had in mind
erent and incommensurable stages
truction.

ite establishment of Socialism" in
nin meant not the building up of
y within a year or within "several
, he did not mean that the classes
vay with, that the contradictions
nd country will be eliminated; he
'ORATION OF PRODUCTION
XmiES IN THE HANDS OF
tftlAN STATE, and the possibil-
products between town and coun-
hortness of the term is in itself a
understanding of the whole per-

n for this limited and immediate

task too short a term was set at the beginning of
1918. It is this purely pratical "miscalculation" that
Lenin derided at the Fourth Congress of the Com'
intern when he said "we were more foolish then
than we are now." But "we" had a correct view
of the general perspective and did not for a mo-
ment believe that it is possible to set up a com'
plete "Socialist order" in the course of twelve
months, and in a backward country at that.

The attainment of this main and final aim — the
construction of a Socialist society — was left by
Lenin to three whole generations — ourselves, our
children and our grandchildren.

Is it not clear that in his article of 1915 Lenin
meant by the organisation of "Socialist produc-
tion," not the setting up of a Socialist society but
an immeasurably more elementary task which has
already been realized by us in the U. S. S. R.?
Otherwise one would have to come to the absurd
conclusion that, according to Lenin, the proletarian
party, having captured power, "postpones" the
revolutionary war until the third generation.

Such — that is, truly said — is the position of the
main stronghold of the new theory as far as the
1915 quotation is concerned. However, it is even
more sad when we know that Lenin wrote this
passage not in application to Russia. He spoke of
Europe in contradistinction to Russia. This follows
not only from the content of the quoted passage
dedicated to the question of the United States of
Europe, but also from Lenin's entire position at
the time. A few months hence, November 20,
1915, Lenin wrote specially on Russia, saying:

"The task of the proletariat follows obviously from
this actual state of affairs. That task is a relentless
heroic revolutionary struggle against the monarchy
(the slogans of the January conference of 1912 —
'three stages'), a struggle which would attract all
democratic masses, that is, first and foremost the
peasants. At the same time a ruthless struggle must
be waged against chauvinism, a struggle FOR THE
SOCIALIST REVOLUTION IN EUROPE in al-
liance with its proletariat . . . The war crisis HAS
STRENGTHENED the economic and political fac-
tors driving the petty bourgeoisie, including the
peasantry, toward? the Left. Therein lies the ob-
pective basis of the absolute possibility of a victory
of the DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION in Russia.
That the OBJECTIVE CONDITIONS FOR A
SOCIALIST REVOLUTION HAVE FULLY
MATURED IN WESTERN EUROPE there is no
need to prove. This was recognised before the war
by all influential Socialists of all advanced countries."
— (Vol. 13, page 212. Our emphasis).

Thus, in 1915, Lenin clearly spoke of a demo-
cratic revolution in Russia and of a Socialist Rev-
olution in Western Europe* In passing, as of some
thing which is self-evident, he mentions that in
Western Europe, distinct from Russia, in contra-
distinction to Russia, the conditions for a Socialist
revolution have "fully matured." But this quo'
tation — one of many — which squarely and directly
refers to Russia, the authors of the new' theory,
the authors of the draft program, simply ignore
as they ignore hundreds of other passages, as they
ignore all of Lenin's works. Instead of taking
notice of this, they, as we have seen, take another
passage which refers to Western Europe, ascribe
to it a meaning which it cannot and does not mean
to have, attach this ascribed meaning to Russia, a
country which the passage did not have in mind,
and on this "foundation 1 they build their new
theory.

What was Lenin's position on this question inv
mediately before the October period? On leaving
Switzerland after the February revolution in 1917,
Lenin addressed a letter to the Swiss workers in
which he declared:

"Russia is a peasant country, it is one of the most
backward countries of Europe. Socialism cannot be
IMMEDIATELY triumphant there. But the peas-
ant character of the country with the huge funds
of land in the hands of the aristocracy and land-
owners, CAN, on the basis of the experiences of
1905, give a tremendous impetus to the bourgeois
democratic revolution in Russia and make our rev-
olution a PRELUDE to the world Socialist revolu-
tion, a STEP towards it . . . The Russian prole-
tarian party cannot by its own forces VICTORIOUS-
LY COMPETE the Socialist revolution. But it can
give the Russian revolution dimensions such as will
create the mo6t favorable conditions for it, such as
will in a certain sense BEGIN it. It can facilitate
matters for the entrance into a decisive battle on
the part of its MAIN and most reliable ally, the
EUROPEAN and American socialist proletariat." —
(Vol. 14, part 2, page 407).

All elements of the question are contained in
these few lines. If Lenin believed in 1915, in time
of war and reaction, as they try to convince us

FOREWORD

With this jjsue The Mili-
tant prints the second in-
stallment of "The Draft
Program of the Commu-
nist Internaiibn: A Cri-
ticism of Fundamentals"
by L. D. frotsky. This
document, a masterpiece of
Marxist-Leninftt literature was
submitted by comrade Trot-
sky to the SiJfth World Con-
gress of the Communist In-
ternational which finally
adopted the draft program
drafted by comrades Bucha-
rin and Stalia, without any
important changes. The en-
tire validity, of this timely
and fundamental criticism re-
mains in sp e of the fact
that it was kept from the
Congress anc : lever discussed
by the delegates. The sole
attention accorded it was its
distribution fc members of
the Prograifi Commission
and a reporl on the docu-
ment to the i"Senioren-Kon-
vent" of the|Gongress which
immediately fsettled" the is-
sue without discussion.

4
A rigid Control on this
document "^4s established
forthwith .? v d the few
copies of the >cument which
were distrib ited were re-
called by the Secretariat. Our
publication is an authentic
copy which We have just re-
ceived. It d^als chiefly with
the role of j American Im-
perialism andjthe prospect of
new revolutionary situations,
the revisionist theory of "So-
cialism in on«S country," with
the Chinese 'revolution and
its lessons, arid with the for-
mation of wojrkers and peas-
ants parties- -Jvhich Trotsky,
in line with Ljenin, condemns
in principle. ^Trotsky's com-,
ment on the "Third Party
Alliance" wi;h La Follette,
the fight against which was
led by him, vJill be especially
interesting to|American com-
munists. Thje entire docu-
ment will bejprinted in full
consecutively |in this and the
forthcoming "tissues of The
Militant without any changes.
Its basic importance for the
international s revolutionary
movement anp the unanswer-
able correctness of its posi-
tion on the burning problems
of the Comrmnist Interna-
tional make is an invaluable
contribution ti the Bolshevik
literature of mr period.

— Editor.

now, that the proletariat of Russia can alone build
up Socialism so as, when it will have accomplished
this work, to be able to declare war on the bour-
geois States, how can Lenin, at the beginning of
1*917, after the February revolution, speak so cat-
egorically about ttoe impossibility for backward
peasant Russia to build up Socialism with its own
forces? One must at least to some extent be log-
ical and, to be candid, have some respect for Lenin.
It would be superfluous to add more quotations.
To give an integral outline of Lenin's economic
and political views conditioned by the internation-
al, character of the Socialist revolution, would re-
quire an independent investigation which would
include many subjects except that of building up
a self-sufficing Socialist society in one country, for
Lenin did not know this subject.

However, we feel compelled to mention here
one more article by Lenin — that "On Coopera-
tion" — as the draft program seems to quote it
extensively, i. e., uses some of its expressions with
a purpose which has nothing in common with
that of the article. We have in mind the fifth
chapter of the draft program which says that the
workers of the Soviet Republics

"possess all the necessary and sufficient MATERIAL
prerequisites in the country . . . for the complete
construction of Socialism. "^(Our emphasis).

If the article dictated by Lenin during his illness
and published after his death really says that the
Soviet State possesses all the necessary and suffi-
cient MATERIAL, that is, first of all PRO-
DUCTIVE, prerequisites for an independent con'
struction of complete Socialism, one would only
have to surmise that either Lenin slipped in his
dictation or the stenographer made a mistake in
deciphering her notes. The one or the other is
at any rate more proble than Lenin's abandon-
ment of Marxism and his own teachings in two
hasty strokes. Fortunately, however, there is not
the slightest need whatever for such an explana-
tion. The remarkable, although incomplete article
"On Cooperation," bound up by unity of thought
with the other no less remarkable articles of his
last period which constitute, so to say, a chapter
of an unfinished book dealing with THE PLACE
OCCUPIED BY THE OCTOBER REVOLU-
TION IN THE CHAIN OF REVOLUTIONS
IN THE WEST AND EAST, does not by any
means speak of the things which the revisionists
of Leninism so light- midedly ascribe to it.

In that article Lenin explains that the "trading"
cooperatives can and must entirely change their
social role in the workers' state and that by a cor-
rect policy they may direct the merging of private
peasant interests with the general state interests
along Socialist channels. Lenin substantiates this
irrefutable idea as follows:

"In reality, power of the state over all large scale
means of production, state power in the hands of
the proletariat, an alliance of that proletariat with
the millions of small and dwarfish peasants, security
of proletarian leadership in relation to the peasants
— is this not all that is necessary foe the cooperatives,
the cooperatives alone, which we have formerly
treated as mere traders and which, from a certain
viewpoint, we still have the right to treat them as
such even now under NEP, is this not all that is
necessary for the complete construction of Socialist
Society? It is not yet the construction of Socialist
society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient
for this construction." — (Vol 18, part 2, page 140).

Te text of the passage which comprises an un-
finished sentence ("of the cooperatives alone"?)
irrefutably proves that we have before us an un-
corrected draft which was dictated and not writ-
ten. It is the more inadmissible to cling to a few
individual words of the text rather than trying to
get a general idea of the article. Fortunately,
however, even the LETTER of the cited passage,
and not only its SPIRIT, grants no one the right
to misuse it in the manner it is being misused by
the authors of the draft program. Speaking of the
"necessary and sufficient" prerequisites Lenin
strictly limits his subject in this article. He deals
in it only with the question as' to the ways and
means by which we will reach Socialism through
the numerous and disjointed peasant enterprise's
without new class upheavals, having the prere-
quisites of the Soviet regime as our basis. The
article is entirely devoted to the SOCIO-ORGAN-
IZATIONAL FORMS of the transition from
small private commodity economy to collective
economy but not with the MATERIAL PRO-
DUCTIVE conditions of that transition.

If the European proletariat were victorious to'

day and would come to ■
technique, the question of
Lenin as a socio- of ganizati«
nation of private with soc
retain its significance. C
way through which advanc
electricity can reorganize ai
peasant enterprises under
cooperation cannot be suh
and does not create that i
not merely speak of the n
prerequisites in general, t
definitely enumerates them,
of the State over all large
tion" (an uncorrected phra=
the hands of the proletaria.
that proletariat with the m
4) "security of proletarian
to the peasants" ... It is
ation of these PURELY F
— nothing is said here abou
that Lenin arrives at his
(that is, the enumerated)
and sufficient" for the bui
society. "All that is nee
FROM A POLITICAL A
But, adds Lenin right the
yet the construction of Soi
Because politica' condition:
be sufficient do not solve t:
cultural question still rema
says Lenin — emphasizing i
putting it' in quotation marl
tremendous importance of ■
we do not have. That cul
technique, Lenin knew as
cultural" — he brings back tt
"a certain MATERIAL bas
page 145).

It will suffice to mention
fication which Lenin, we v
purposely linked up with th
national social revolution,
ture with the possession of
ficient" political (BUT NC
requisites, would exhaust oi
the question of the uninte
able economic, political,
struggle of the country wl
building of a Socialist socie
with world capitalism whic
is technically powerful.

"I am ready to state" —
larly towards the end of th
of gravity for us is beir
work were it not for the ii
it not for the duty to figl
international scale." — (Ibii

Such is Lenin's real idea i
on cooperation, even if isol
works. How else can we s
cation, the formula of the a -
deliberately take Lenin's w
sion of "necessary and s-
and add to them the basic
although Lenin definitely
prerequisites in parenthesis
what we do not have and ^
in our struggle "for our p
tional scale," that is, in con
national proletarian revolut

That is how matters stan
last stronghold of the theo.
not take here those article:
and uttered during the enti.
in which Lenin says and rej
that without a victorious re^
to failure, that it is impossi
geoisie economically in on
a backward country, that t
a Socialist society is in its
national task from which
"pessimistic" conclusions fc
the new national reactionan
sufficiently optimistic from
olutionary internationalism,
argument here only on th
authors of the draft have
which are supposed to cres
sufficient" prerequisites for
we see that their whole st
one has to do is but touch

However, we consider it
least one of Lenin's direct ;
stion under consideration, w

December 1, 1928.

THE MILITANT

Page ,1

OM INTERN

A CRITICISM OF
FUNDAMENTALS

By L. D. TROTSKY

FOREWORD

With this fcsue The Mili-
tant prints 0ie second in'
stallment of "The Draft
Program of the Commu-
nist Interaction: A Cri-
ticism of Fundamentals"
by L. D. trotsky. This
document, a masterpiece of
Marxist-Leninjst literature was
submitted by comrade Trot'
sky to the Si*h World Con-
gress of the Communist In-
ternational which finally
adopted the draft program
drafted by comrades Bucha-
rin and Staliti, without any
important changes. The en-
tire validity of this timely
and fundamental criticism re-
mains in sf e of the fact
that it was kept from the
Congress anc iever discussed
by the delegates. The sole
attention accorded it was its
distribution to members of
the Prograiji Commission
and a report on the docu-
ment to the r Senioren-Kon'
vent" of the pongress which
immediately fsettled" the is-
sue without discussion.
t

A rigid Control on this
document fs^s established
forthwith ? v d the few
copies of the jcument which
were distrib ited were re-
called by the Secretariat. Our
publication i| an authentic
copy which v>e have just re-
ceived. It d^als chiefly with
the role oft American Im-
perialism andjthe prospect of
new revolutionary situations,
the revisionist theory of "So-
cialism in one country," with
the Chinese ^revolution and
its lessons, arid with the for-
mation of workers and peas-
ants parties- >hich Trotsky,
in line with Ljenin, condemns
in principle. ^Trotsky's com-,
ment on the: "Third Party
Alliance" wi?H La Follette,
the fight ags|nst which was
led by him, viill be especially
interesting tojAmerican com-
munists. Tlje entire docu-
ment will beyprinted in full
consecutively ]in this and the
forthcoming iissues of The
Militant without any changes.
Its basic importance for the
international j revolutionary
movement anfl the unanswer-
able correctness of its posi-
tion on the burning problems
of the Comryunist Interna-
tional make is an invaluable
contribution ti the Bolshevik
literature of wsx period.

— Editor.

now, that the proletariat of Russia can alone build
up Socialism so as, when it will have accomplished
this work, to be able to declare war on the bour-
geois States, how can Lenin, at the beginning of
1*917, after the February revolution, speak so cat-
egorically about tlee impossibility for backward
peasant Russia to build up Socialism with its own
forces? One must at least to some extent be log-
ical and, to be candid, have some respect for Lenin.
It would be superfluous to add more quotations.
To give an integral outline of Lenin's economic
and political views conditioned by the internation-
al character of the Socialist revolution, would re-
quire an independent investigation which would
include many subjects except that of building up
a self-sufficing Socialist society in one country, for
Lenin did not know this subject.

However, we feel compelled to mention here
one more article by Lenin — that "On Coopera-
tion" — as the draft program seems to quote it
extensively, i. e., uses some of its expressions with
a purpose which has nothing in common with
that of the article. We have in mind the fifth
chapter of the draft program which says that the
workers of the Soviet Republics

"possess all the necessary and sufficient MATERIAL
prerequisites in the country ... for the complete
construction of Socialism." — (Our emphasis).

If the article dictated by Lenin during his illness
and published after his death really says that the
Soviet State possesses all the necessary and suffi-
cient MATERIAL, that is, first of all PRO-
DUCTIVE, prerequisites for an independent con-
struction of complete Socialism, one would only
have to surmise that either Lenin slipped in his
dictation or the stenographer made a mistake in
deciphering her notes. The one or the other is
at any rate more proble than Lenin's abandon-
ment of Marxism and his own teachings in two
hasty strokes. Fortunately, however, there is not
the slightest need whatever for such an explana-
tion. The remarkable, although incomplete article
"On Cooperation," bound up by unity of thought
with the other no less remarkable articles of his
last period which constitute, so to say, a chapter
of an unfinished book dealing with THE PLACE
OCCUPIED BY THE OCTOBER REVOLU-
TION IN THE CHAIN OF REVOLUTIONS
IN THE WEST AND EAST, does not by any
means speak of the things which the revisionists
of Leninism so light-midedly ascribe to it.

In that article Lenin explains that the "trading"
cooperatives can and must entirely change their
social role in the workers' state and that by a cor-
rect policy they may direct the merging of private
peasant interests with the general state interests
along Socialist channels. Lenin substantiates this
irrefutable idea as follows:

"In reality, power of the state over all large scale
means of production, state power in the hands of
the proletariat, an alliance of that proletariat with
the millions of small and dwarfish peasants, security
of proletarian leadership in relation to the peasants
— is this not all that is necessary for the cooperatives,
the cooperatives alone, which we have formerly
treated as mere traders and which, from a certain
viewpoint, we still have the right to treat them as
such even now under NEP, is this not all that is
necessary for the complete construction of Socialist
Society? It is not yet the construction of Socialist
society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient
for this construction." — (Vol 18, part 2, page 140).

Te text of the passage which comprises an un-
finished sentence ("of the cooperatives alone"?)
irrefutably proves that we have before us an un-
corrected draft which was dictated and not writ-
ten. It is the more inadmissible to cling to a few
individual words of the text rather than trying to
get a general idea of the article. Fortunately,
however, even the LETTER of the cited passage,
and not only its SPIRIT, grants no one the right
to misuse it in the manner it is being misused by
the authors of the draft program. Speaking of the
"necessary and sufficient" prerequisites Lenin
strictly limits his subject in this article. He deals
in it only with the question as to the ways and
means by which we will reach Socialism through
the numerous and disjointed peasant enterprise's
without new class upheavals, having the prere-
quisites of the Soviet regime as our basis. The
article is entirely devoted to the SOCIO-ORGAN-
IZATIONAL FORMS of the transition from
small private commodity economy to collective
economy but not with the MATERIAL PRO-
DUCTIVE conditions of that transition.

If the European proletariat were victorious to-

day and would come to our assistance with its
technique, the question of cooperation raised by
Lenin as a socio-ofganizational method of coordi-
nation of private with social interests would still
retain its significance. Cooperation points the
way through which advanced technique including
electricity can reorganize and unite the millions of
peasant enterprises under the Soviet regime; but
cooperation cannot be substituted for technique
and does not create that technique. Lenin does
not merely speak of the necessary and sufficient
prerequisites in general, but, as we have seen,
definitely enumerates them. They are: 1) "power
of the State over all large scale means of produc-
tion" (an uncorrected phrase) ; 2) "State power in
the hands of the proletariat"; 3) "an alliance of
that proletariat with the millions of . . . peasants";
4) "security of proletarian leadership in relation
to the peasants" ... It is only after the enumer-
ation of these PURELY POLITICAL conditions
— nothing is said here about material conditions —
that Lenin arrives at his conclusion that "this"
(that is, the enumerated) "is all that is necessary
and sufficient" for the building up of a Socialist
society. "All that is necessary and sufficient"
FROM A POLITICAL ASPECT, but no more.
But, adds Lenin right there and then, "it is not
yet the construction of Socialist society." Why?
Because politica' conditions alone, although they
be sufficient do not solve the whole problem. The
cultural question still remains. "ONLY" this —
says Lenin — emphasizing the word "only" and
putting it in quotation marks in order to show the
tremendous importance of the prerequisites which
we do not have. That culture is bound up with
technique, Lenin knew as well as we. "To be
cultural" — he brings back the revisionist to earth—
"a certain MATERIAL basis is necessary." (Ibid.,
page 14?).

It will suffice to mention the problem of electri-
fication which Lenin, we will mention in passing,
purposely linked, up with the question of the inter-
national social revolution. The struggle for cul
ture with the possession of the "necessary and suf-
ficient" political (BUT NOT MATERIAL) pre-
requisites, would exhaust our work were it not for
the question of the uninterrupted and irreconcil-
able economic, political, military and cultural
struggle of the country which is engaged in the
building of a Socialist society on a backward basis
with world capitalism which is on its decline but
is technically powerful.

"I am ready to state" — emphasises Lenin particu-
larly towards the end of the article — "that the center
of gravity for us is being transferred to cultural
work were it not for the international relations, were
it not for the duty to fight for our positions on an
international scale." — (Ibid., page 24).

Such is Lenin's real idea if we analyze the article
on cooperation, even if isolated from all his other
works. How else can we style, if not as a falsifi-
cation, the formula of the authors of the draft who
deliberately take Lenin's words about our posses-
sion of "necessary and sufficient" prerequisites
and add to them the basic material prerequisites
although Lenin definitely speaks of the material
prerequisites in parenthesis, saying that it is just
what we do not have and what we must still gain
in our struggle "for our position on an interna
tional scale," that is, in connection with the inter-
national proletarian revolution?

That is how matters stand with the second and
last stronghold of the theory. We purposely did
not take here those articles and speeches written
and uttered during the entire course of 1905-1923
in which Lenin says and repeats most categorically
that without a victorious revolution we are doomed
to failure, that it is impossible to defeat the bour-
geoisie economically in one country, particularly
a backward country, that the task of building up
a Socialist society is in its very essence an inter-
national task from which Lenin drew perhaps
"pessimistic" conclusions for the promulgators of
the new national reactionary Utopia but which are
sufficiently optimistic from the viewpoint of rev-
olutionary internationalism. We concentrate our
argument here only on the passages which the
authors of the draft have themselves chosen and
which are supposed to create the "necessary and
sufficient" prerequisites for their Utopia, and yet
we see that their whole structure collapses. An'
one has to do is but touch it.

However, we consider it in place to present at
least one of Lenin's direct statements on the que-
stion under consideration, which does not need any

comment and will not permit any misinterpretation.

"WE HAVE EMPHASIZED IN MANY OF
OUR WORKS, IN ALL OUR SPEECHES AND
IN THE WHOLE OF OUR PRESS that matters
in Russia are not such as IN THE ADVANCED
CAPITALIST COUNTRIES, that we have in Russia
a minority of industrial workers and an overwhelm-
ing majority of small agrarians. The social revolu-
tion in such a country can be finally successful only
on two conditions: First, on the condition that it
is given TIMELY support by the social revolution
of one or several advanced countries . . . Second,
that there be an agreement between the proletariat
which establishes the dictatorship or holds' State
power in its hands and the majority of the peasantry.

"We know that ONLY AN AGREEMENT
WITH THE PEASANTRY CAN SAVE THE
SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA SO LONG
AS THE REVOLUTION IN OTHER COUN-
TRIES HAS NOT ARRIVED."— (Lenin, Vol. 18,
part 1, pages 137-138. Our emphasis).

We hope that this passage is sufficiently in-
structive. Firstly, Lenin himself emphasizes in it
that the ideas which he advanced have developed
"in many of our works, in all oui speeches, and
in the whole of our press"; secondly, this outlook
was uttered by Lenin not in 1915, two years be-
fore the October Revolution, but in 1921, the
fourth year after the October revolution.

As far as Lenin is concerned, we venture to
think that the question is clear enough. One only
has to ask now — what was formerly the opinion
of the authors of the draft program as to the basic
questions now in hand?

On this question, Stalin said in November 1926:

"The Party always took as its starting point the
idea that the victory of Socialism in one country
means the possibility to build up Socialism in that
country, and that this task can be accomplished with
the forces of one country." — (Pravda, September
12, 1926).

We already know that the Party NEVER
TOOK THIS AS A STARTING POINT. On
the contrary "in many of our works, in all our
speeces and in the whole of our press," the Party
proceeded from the contrary position which found
its highest expression in the program of the OP.
S.U. But one would hope that at least Stalin
himself "always" held this false view that "Social-
ism can be built up with the forces of one coun-
try." We will see.

What Stalin thought of this question in 1905,
and 1915 we have absolutely no means of knowing
as there are no documents on the matter whatever.
But in 1924 Stalin gave an outline of Lenin's
views on the building up of Socialism, as follows:

"The overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie
and the putting up of a proletarian government in
one country does not yet guarantee the complete
victory of Socialism. The main task of Socialism—
the ORGANIZATION OF SOCIALIST PRO-
DUCTION — still remains ahead. Can this task be
accomplished, can the final victory of Socialism in
one country be attained, without the joint efforts of
the proletariat of several advanced countries? No,
this IS IMPOSSIBLE. To overthrow the bourgeoi-
sie, the efforts of one country are sufficient — th'e
victory of our revolution bears this out. For the
final victory of Socialism, FOR THE ORGANIZA-
TION OF SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION. THE
EFFORTS OF ONE COUNTRY, PARTICULAR-
LY OF SUCH A PEASANT COUNTRY AS
RUSSIA, ARE INSUFFICIENT. For this the ef-
forts of the proletarians of several advanced coun-
tries are necessary . . .

"Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features
of Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution."—
(Stalin, "Lenin and Leninism," Russian 1924 edition,
pages 40-41).

One must admit that the "characteristic features
of Lenin's theory" are outlined here quite correctly.
In the later editions of Stalin's book this passage
was altered to read in just the opposite way and
the "characteristic features of Lenin's theory" were
developed within a year as . . . Trotskyism. The
Seventh Plenum of the E.C.C.I. passed its decision,
not on the basis of the 1924 edition but of the
1926 edition.

That is how the matter stands with Stalin. It
could not be any sadder than that. One could,
it is true, reconcile himself with this, were it not
for the fact that matters are just as sad with regard
to the Seventh Plenum of the E.C.C.I.

There is one hope left and that is that at leasl
Bucharin, the real author of the draft program,
"always proceeded" from the possibility of the
realization of Socialism in one country. We shall

see.

TO BE CONTINUED

Page 6

THE MI LIT ANT

3555S

December 1, iff-2J,

mmmSmSmmmmlm

Spector s Statement to Canadian Party ' j The

Toronto, November -6th,. 192.8.
To The Political Committee,
Communist P.arty of Canada,

Following upon the motion at yesterday s session
of the Polcom to endorse the expulsion of the three
comrades J. P. Cannon, Max Shachtman, and Mar-
tin Abern, from the Workers Party of America for
their stand, on behalf of the opening of a serious
discussion of the fundamental problems of the Com-
munist International, a motion which I was unable
to support, certain questions have been directed to
me by the Polcom as to my own position. These
mav be Wed down to the following:

First whether I believe that the ideological hne
of "Trotskyism" is correct and whether I am pre-
pared to 'carry on an aggressive campaign against
Trotskyism and the comrades who have been ex-
pelled from the W. P. for their solidarity -with the
platform of the Russian Opposition.

in reply to the question whether I am prepared
"to wage an aggressive campaign against 'Trotsky-
ism'," f can assure the Polcom that I am prepared
to wage an .aggressive campaign for Leninism. Hist-
orical Trotskyism was liquidated with the entrance
of L. D. Trotsky into the Communist Party and his
collaboration with Lenin following his return to
Russia in 1917. Trotsky has declared before the
Russian Party that in all questions bearing any
character of principle at all, in which he had differ-
ences with Lenin prior to 1917, Lenin was correct.
The revival of the issue of so-called "Trotskyism'
by the majority in 1924 and 1925 was an attempt to
obscure the. real issues by an artificial issue. Z-.no-
viev who was one of the leading comrades in _ the
fight against Trotsky has not only admitted since
that the latter was correct in his fight for internal
Party democracy in 1923-24, but also that the issue
of "Trotskyism" was then invented by himself and a
few other comrades for strategical purposes, to link
up the current differences with differences that had
loivz passed into history.

The comrades in the vanguard of the fight against
"Trotskyism," were most of them further removed
f;vm the position of Lenin on his return to Russia
and. his presentation of the April Theses of 1917,
than L. IX Trotsky. Zinoviev and Kainenev,- Ry-
kov, Losovsky, etc. were opposed to the insurrection
by which the Bolsheviks conquered power and were_
for a coalition of all the Socialist Parties. Comrade
Stalin, prior to Lenin's return had written articles
for co-operation with Tseretelli. When so much
is made of the differences between Trotsky and
Lenin during the course of the revolution itself, it
sh.mld be borne in mind 'that -all these differences
are being -exaggerated and distorted for factional
ends, arid that silence is maintained on the differ-
ences that ether comrades, Bucharin for instance-,
bad' with Lgnin but who are nevertheless regarded
us one hundred percent Leninists. Comrade Bucharin
not only fought Lenin on the Brest Litovsk question
but also on'a Trade Union question, and on the
question of State Capitalism. On the Peasant ques-
tion he was the author of one of the most dangerous
slogans ever' put out by a leading comrade; the
slogan of "enrich yourselves," the objective signif-
icance of which meant a call on the Kulaks to in-
tensify their exploitation of the poor peasantry. The
present leader of the C. I., Bucharin, had to be
overruled on the question of the validity of partial
demands in the Communist Program by the inter-
vention of Lenin, Trotsky and others at the Fourth
Congress.

Not only did Lenin during his lifetime deny all
slatiderays rumors of any differences between him-
self and Trotsky on the Peasant Question, but up
to his last days he considered L. D. Trotsky his
closest collaborator as may be seen by the corre-
spondence which passed between these two leaders of
the revolution in the letter to the Institute of Party
History by L. D. Trotsky. Lenin called upon the
latter to defend his views for him on -'the following
questions, the National Question, the Question of
Workers and Peasants Control, the Monopoly of
Foreign trade, the struggle against Bureaucracy, etc.
It is high time that a stop be put to the falsification
of J*arty history that has accompanied the unscru-
pulous and demagogic campaign against the revolu-
tionist who next to Lenin was the most authentic
leader and organizer of the October Revolution,
and was so recognized by Lenin himself. Trotsky
today stands foursquare for the maintenance of the
principles of Leninism, uncontaminated by the op-
portunist deviations that have been smuggled into
the. Comintern and U.S.S.R. policy by the present
Rvkov-Stalin-Bucharin regime and to which the les-
sons of the Chinese revolution, the economic situa-
tion in the U.S.S.R., the situation within the C.P.

We print herewith in part the statement of Comrade
Spector to the Political Committee of the Communist
Party' at its -meeting on Nov. 6th, 1928 in response to the
demand that he state his position pa the cscpyjsion of Can-
non, Afoern and Shachtman from the Workers (Com-
munist) Party of America and on the issues connected
with the expulsion. As reported in the last number of
The Militant Comrade Spector was forthwith suspended
from the party and removed from all responsible positions.
Since then he was fWW^rl oyr^lfeci from the party for
refusing to retract his stand.

In view of the great prominence and popularity of
Comrade Spector as the outstanding Communist leader.- 'n
Canada bis arbitrary expulsion has made a sensation in the
labor movement and has called forth the greatest indig-
nation of the rank and file of the Party. Comrade Spec-
tor was elected to the Executive Committee of the Com-
munist International at the Sixth World Congress. He
has been for years the Chairman of the Party and editor
of its organs, the Canadian Worker and the Canadian
Labor Monthly. He represented the Communist Party of
Canada at the Fourth and Sixth World Congresses of
the Communist International. — Editor.

S.U., and the experiences of the Anglo-Russian
Committee bear eloquent witness.

For these latter are the real issues. In retrospect
it is clear that the Sixth Congress, meeting after a
delay of four years, nevertheless failed to measure
up to its great tasks. Eclecticism and a zig-zag line
replaced a real analysis of the rich treasures or
political experience of the past four years. The dis-
cussion of the Chinese revolution, the greatest up-
heaval since the November revolution, was utterly
inadequate. As in the case of discussion of the
failure of October 1923 in Germany,' the attempt
to throw; major responsibility for what happened in
China on the leadership of a Chinese Communist
Party will not down. The responsibility for the
opportunist policy of our Party in China lies in the
first place with the Ex. Committee of the Comintern
and with the formulations of policy of Stalin, Bucha-
rin, Martynov. Lenin at- the II Congress proposed
a clear line in the Colonial question, for the inde-
pendence of the Communist Parties and the working
class movement even in embryonic form; against the
National bourgeoisie, struggle for proletarian hege-
mony in the the National emancipation movement
even when the National Revolution has only bour-
geois democratic tasks to solve; constant propa-
ganda of the Soviet idea and creation of Soviets at
the earliest moment possible; finally, possibility of
the non-capitalist development of backward colonial
and semi-colonial countries on condition that they
receive support from the U.S.S.R. and the prole-
tariat of the advanced capitalist countries.

Otherwise, Lenin pointed out, the alliance with
the national bourgeoisie would be dangerous to the
revolution. This alliance could only be affected on
the basis that the bourgeoisie carried on an effective
struggle against imperialism and- did not prevent the
Communist Party from organizing the revolutionary
action of the workers and peasants. Failure to exact
these guarantees would lead to a repetition of the
Kemalism of the Turkish national struggle which
has made its peace with Imperialism. Nearly every
one of these cardinal points of Lenin's revolution-
ary colonial policies was violated in China. By
throwing out the smoke screen that the creation of
Soviets- would be tantamount to the dictatorship of
the proletariat, despite the fact that Lenin proposed
the Soviets already as a form of the democratic dic-
tatorship of workers and peasants in the 1905 rev-
olution, the leadership of the Comintern misrepre-
sented the criticism and theses of the opposition and
covered up their own opportunist mistakes.

Our Chinese party was subordinated to the Na-
tional bourgeoisie in the Kuomintang under' cover
of the old Menshevik Martynov policy of the "Block
of Four Classes" (renunciation of right to criticize
Kuomintang from the outside, renunciation of the
right to criticize Sun Yat Senism, renunciation of
an illegal fighting apparatus, and of the creation of
cells in the National Army.) The working class
movement was subordinated to the Government of
the National bourgeoisie (prohibition in certain cases
of picketing and strikes, disarmament of the work-
ers, etc.) The C.P. maintained silence at the be-
ginning of the repression period (coup d'etat of
Chiang Kai- Shek etc.) The enlarged Executive of
the C. I. did not subsequently straighten out the
line. The slogan of Soviets was issued not when the
revolutionary movement was at its height but when
the bourgeoisie had already betrayed and the work-
ers and peasants were being decimated. Stalin was
making a speech still hailing Chiang Kai Shek as a
revolutionary warrior only a few da.vs prior to
Chiang Kai Shek coup in a speech, which was criti-
cized at the time by Comrade Radek, and which was
of course suppressed to avoid compromising himself.

The opportunist line followed in the Chinese rev-

olution is of course by no means isolated. I have dwelt
at some length on the opportunist line followed m
the refusal to break with the traitorous British Gen-
eral Council in the Anglo-Russian Committee. The
Anglo-Russian Committee was a political block 'be-
tween two trade uoiou centres. The proposal of
the opposition demonstratively to break with the
General Co.ucii was falsely represented as being a
parallel to leaving the old unions. Any Communist
who reads the resolutions adopted by the Anglo-Rus-
sian conferences of Paris, July 1926 and Berlin,
August 1926 and, finally of the Berlin conference
at the beginning of April 1927 should convince
themselves that an absolutely impermissable capitu-
lation line was followed. At the latter meeting the
Soviet representatives went on record recognizing
the General Council, "as the sole representative and
spokesman" of the British Trade Union movement
at a time when the traitors of the General Council
were suppressing the minority movement. But at
the Enlarged Executive of May 1927, Comrade
Bucharin sought to justify the Berlin capitulation
by the theory of "exceptional circumstances," that is,
that it was in the diplomatic interests of the Soviet
Union which was under threat of war danger front)
the provocation of the British Government.

Such an attitude has iittle in common with the in-
structions of Lenin to the Soviet delegation that
went to the Hague Conference, to ruthlessly un-
mask the Pacifists and Reformists. By the policy
pursued in the Anglo-Russian Committee the Brit-
ish Communist Party developed such a degree of
opportunism that it was at first even opposed to
the Soviet Trade Union manifesto announcing the
treachery of the Left as well as the Right Labor
fakers of the General Council and wanted to con-
tinue a fight for the re-establishment of the mori-
bund Anglo-Russian Committee. The whole line
followed in the Anglo-Russian Committee was, like
that in the Chinese Revolution, based on manoevers
with the reformists at the top instead of regard for
the unleashing of the mass movement below.

The economic analysis of the opposition on the
situation within the U.S.S.R. on the danger of the
growth of the Kulak, the Nt-p man, and the bureau-
crat has been swiftly vindicated. Undoubtedly
there are Thermidorean elements fa the country
which are striving to bring their class pressure to
bear on the Party. The highest duty of a revolu-
tionist is to warn of these dangers and to propose
the necessary measures to combat them. That was
always the case while Lenin was alive. The crisis
last February in connection with the grain collec-
tion proved strikingly the danger of the Kulak. The
events in Smolensk, the Don Basin, the Ukraine,
etc. proved the absolute necessity not only for such
a campaign of self-criticism as Comrade Stalin felt
the need to initiate but for effective internal Party
democracy. One of the first guarantees of such
real Party democracy would be the return of the
exiled revolutionary oppositionists and their rein-
statement with full rights to their former positions
in the Party.

I have been a foundation member of the Com-
munist Party of Canada since its organization in
which I took a joint part. I have also been a mem-
ber of the C.E.C. practically all the time since. Re-
gardless of the immediate organizational consequenc-
es, I find myself compelled to make the above state-
ment and to further register the fact that nothing on
earth can separate me from the Revolutionary Com-
munist movement. Everything that I have stated
flows from my convictions that the deviations from
Leninism in the C.I. can and must be corrected by
a struggle within the International and its sections.

Long live the Communist International!

Long live the Proletarian Revolution !

MAURICE SPECTOR.

In The Next Issue

"THE JULY PLENUM AND THE RIGHT DANGER"
By L. D. Trotsky

This Leninist analysis of the present conflict in
the .Communist Party of the Soviet Union has just
been received and is now being translated for pub-
lication in the next issue of the Militant. The wild
rumors in the Capitalist Press and the silence of the
officials party organs throw no light whatever on
the swiftly-moving and momentous developments
now taking place in the Soviet Union and in the
Communist Party there. Trotsky's article throws a
clear and searching light on the entire situation,
analyzes the class forces at work, explains the posi-
tion and role of the conflicting groups in the party
and indicates the revolutionary bolshevik policy for
the solution of the problems.

CONTIN
The perspectiv
opposition to tha
is based upon a
power of Americ
?:on of the leffr
characterized by:

1. Overesti
underestimatioi
ties for the pr

2. Overem;
of the Party ai
leadership in i
ability to undei

2. Failure
danger and tl
seen- in the fail

3. Playing
such sporadic
the oil strike
Qshawa,.etc.

4. Seeing
signs or promi
ical movement

5. Revising
in the Februa
majority by th
This revision -
stone group si
and Pepper, ai
Plenum. Faili

These characti
Lovestone group
orientation towa

IV. — Failure to
and the Org;

To organize t
workers is the m;
ing of the Party
phases of their si
ism depends lar|
ously this basic
masses of work*
ments of struggi
dustrial depressic
ist offensive, the
now becomes the
The old craft
upon the skilled
trolled by ultra-i
a class collaborai
undermined and
by the employer
great unorganizc
plished only th
character and r
craft lines. It is
party aggressive!
of these new inc
the Party shall
trade union frael
■tionary work in i
In the organ
Party must base
and semi'skilled
most exploited. ;
ing class. Tri
all its economic
of governmenta
violently resist t
the basic indust
established, but
Hence the Party
unorganized mu
determination ai
tion df -all avail

'The line of
wJik is a righ
Fairy's efforts
i rr>cipal defects
the Party derisi
mg of new un:
to the mass org
carry them thrc
necessary to th
F-.irty was slow
new unions, bu
responsible for
still resisting d
tern, the Profin
Principal cau
organizing the

1. Lack
struggle of t"
tion of the re
underestimat
capitalist off
ststance amo

2. Tcndc

. B.ec£r«ker Is

■ism

T ff E MILITANT

t^-7

#";i

f

rhe Right Danger in the American Party

CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE
The perspective of the Lovestone group is in
opposition to that outlined above. Its perspective
is based upon an overestimation of the reserve
power of American capitalism and an underestima-
tion of the leftward drift of the masses. It is
characterised by.

1. Overestimation of objective difficulties and
underestimation of trie growing favorable opportune-'
ties for the proletarian class struggle.

2. Overemphasis of the weakness and smallness
of the Party and underemphasis of its great task for
leadership in the developing class struggles and its
ability to undertake the solution of these tasks.

2. Failure to realize the seriousness of the war
danger and the coming of serious struggles as is
seen in the failure to build an underground apparatus.

3. Playing down the symptomatic significance of
such sporadic struggles among the unorganized as
the oil strike in Bayonne, automobile strike in
Qshawa, etc.

4. Seeing in the present political situation no
signs or promise for political conflict and mass polit-
ical movements.

5. Revising the perspective for struggle outlined
in the February thesis which was forced upon the
majority 1 by the minority of the Central Committee.
This revision was made in the policies of the Love-
stone group since February in articles tby Lovestone
and Pepper, and in the May resolution of the C.E.C.
Plenum. Failure to publish the February Thesis.

These characteristics of the perspective of the
Lovestone group lack the outlook for struggle and
orientation towards it.

IV. — Failure to Orientate Towards New Unions
and the Organization of the Unorganized.

To organize the many millions of unorganized
workers is the major task of our Party. The build'
ing of the Party as the leader of the workers in all
phases of their struggle against American imperial'
ism depends largely upon its carrying thru vigor-
ously this basic task of organization.. With great
masses of workers developing moods and move-
ments of struggle, under the pressure of the in-
dustrial depression, rationalization, and the capital-
ist offensive, the organization of the unorganized
now becomes the more urgent and possible.

The old craft unions, which are chiefly based
upon the skilled and privileged workers, are con-
trolled by ultra-reactionary, leaders, and following
a class collaboration policy, and which have been
undermined and driven out of the basic industries
by the employers" offensive,- will not organize the
great unorganized masses. This can be accom-
plished only through new unions, militant in
character and based upon industrial instead of
craft lines. It is fundamentally necessary that our
party aggressively take the lead in the formation
of these new industrial unions. At the same time
the Party shall continue and extend through the
trade union fractions, and the T.U.E.L. its revol.u
tionary work in the old unions.

In the organisation of the unorganised, the
Party must base its orientation upon the unskilled
and semi-skilled masses in the basic industries, the
most exploited, and decisive sections of the work-
ing clas3. Trustified American capital, with
all its economic strength and with all the powers
of governmental repression at its disposal, will
violently resist the organisation of the workers in
the basic industries. The new unionism will be
established, but only by determined struggle.
Hence the Party in its great task of organising the
unorganized must undertake its work with firm
determination and with a thoroughgoing mobiliza-
tion df all available forces.

The line of the Lovestone group in this vital
wjik is a right wing line which liquidates the-
Paity's efforts to organise the unorganized. Its
} nr)cipal defects are; (a) resistance to reorientating
the Party decisively in the direction of the build-
ing of new unions, and, (b) dilettante approach
to the mass organization campaigns and failure to
carry them through with the vigor and persistence
necessary to this success. The whole American
P'.irty was slow in orientating towards organizing
new unions, but the Lovestone group is primarily
responsible for this, because it has resisted and is
still resisting despite the pressure of the Comin-
tern, the Prof intern, and the minority of the C.E.C

Principal causes of wrong Lovestone policies in
organizing the unorganized arc;

1. Lack of faith in the possibility for effective
struggle of the masses resulting from the overestima-
tion of the reserve powers of American capitalism and
underestimation of the industrial depression, the
capitalist offensive and the developing mood of re-
sistance among the workers.

2. Tendency to orientate upon the organized

The following is the second installment of rfie
document submitted by the delegation of the Op-
position in the American Party to the Sixth World
Congress of the ComtnMfttst International, in July
1928 and signed by Jarnes P. Cannon, William Z.
Foster, Willialtn F." Dunne, Alex Bittleman, J. W.
Johnstone, Manuel Gomez and George Siskind.

The Lovestorie-Pepptet majority has voted to prohibit
the publication or circtt/arization of this document in the
ranks. We wiifl print it consecutively in "The Militant."

— JiDITORS.

skilled workers rather than upon the unorganized
semi-skilled and unskilled workers.

3. Underestimation of the diminishing influence
of the skilled workers due to the mechanization of
industry and the growing gulf between the skilled
and unskilled.

4. Tendency to orientate upon alleged differences
in the upper strata of the labor bureaucracy.

5. Underestimation of the crisis in the trade
unions, and a tendency to minimise the necessity for
new unions. Illusions regarding possibilities of or-
ganizing the masses into the A. F. of L. unions.
(Articles and speeches by Comrades Pepper and
Lovestone).

6. Constant practice of placing the interests of
the Lovestone fraction ahead of those of the Party,
and the sacrifice of mass campaigns for factional
advantage.

7. Tendency to toy with mass organisation cam-
paigns instead of pushing them through aggressively.

The majority leadership of the Y.W.L. which
is an organic part of the Lovestone faction in the
Party, follows the same opportunist line in its in-
dustrial work.

Typical examples of these wrong- tendencies and
policies are:

1. Rejected as dual unionism the proposal made
by the C.E.C. minority, in May, 1927, for the calling
of an open conference of the left-wing and pro-
gressives in the coal industry to wage direct struggle
against the Lewis machine.

2. Condemned as dual unionism by a campaign
throughout the whole Party the proposal of the CE.
C. minority in its thesis of May 1-927, that the Party
should '^unhesitatingly" establish new unions where-
ever the old unions are decrepit or non-existent.

3. In the February, 1928 thesis, the Lovestone
group simply repeated the year old Comintern de-
cision regarding new unions, although the Comintern
was then in the process of developing another reso-
lution, which on the basis of the industrial depres-
sion and the deepening crisis in the old unions, laid
far greater emphasis on the formation of new unions.

4. Resistance to the introduction of the slogan
"Organize New Unions in Unorganized Industries"
into the Party national election platform.

5. Failure to push forward vigorously for new
unions in the needle industry. In this industry the
Lovestone leadership has a craft union ideology and
is afflicted with right wing theories that the workers
cannot fight the employers and that the unions must
cooperate in building up associations of employers.

6. Resistance to open struggle against the Lewis
machine and building new union in mining industry.

7. Failure to concentrate Party forces for de-
termined organizing campaign; example, total lack
of preliminary work in New England textile industry
prior to New Bedford strike.

8. Systematic , factional discrimination against
comrades capable for trade union work. Placing dnd
displacing of field and district organizers and in-
dustrial organizers solely with regard to factional
interests, with resultant damage to mass organisation.

The correctness of this characterization of a
perspective of struggle given by the Comintern in
April has been more than justified by developing
class struggles and increasing foment among the
masses since. (New Bedford and Fall River strikes
in textile, continuation of the desperate miners
struggle, Bayonne strike in oil, maturing struggle
situation in automobile, meat packing, shoe, etc.,
foment among the farmers, the intensifying poli-
tical situation, etc.)

V. Resistance to Orientation of Active Struggle

Against Lewis Machine and for Building

New Union in Mining Industry.

The most important industrial struggle ever car-
ried through by our Party and its biggest achieve-
ment in trade union work is the left wing strug-
gle now being waged in the mining industry. The
driving force in the formulation and execution of
correct policies and mobilization of Party forces in
this campaign was the CEC minority. The poli-
cies of the Lovetsone group, dictated by an under-
estimation of the whole fight, definitely militated
against the development of the aggressive action
necessitated in this crucial struggle and prevented
this work making greater success. With the coal
industry in a deep crisis (due to the over-develop-
ment of the industry, use of substitute for coal,
etc.) and with the union, weakened by the heavy
unemployment and the shifting of the industry to
the South, being rapidly torn to pieces under the

impact of the attacks of the employers and the
treachery of Lewis, our Party orientation should
have been definitely in the direction of an open v
struggle against the Lewis machine and for the
formation of a new union. The policy : of the
Lovestone C.E.C. majority placed many obstacles in
the way of developing and executing such a poli-
cy. Among these are:

1. Rejection of the open conference proposed by
the CEC minority. This action checked the Party
orientation towards a new union and confused and
demoralized the miners' left wing and left' the miners'
movement without a definite perspective and. discon-
nected our Party from the discontented masses of
miners who wanted to struggle against Lewis. Re-
newal of the motion several months later by the CEC
minority for an open conference and a direct struggle
against Lewis, its acceptance by the Polcom, reestab-
lished our leadership over the masses who were in
grave danger of being demoralized by the I.W.W.

2. Failure of the CEC to vigorously combat ihc
deepseatcd pessimism and systematic resistance against
the application of the policy of open struggle, after
this policy, upon motion of the minority, had b-;.-cn
formally adopted by the CEC. The task. of breaking
clown the resistance of the Lovestone District Organ-
isers fell chiefly upon the CEC minority who were
sharply criticized by the Lovestone majority , for
these actions. The right wing tendencies of these
organizers, signalized by reluctance to fight the Lewis
bureaucracy and by a general underestimation of the
fighting spirit of the miners, were most clearly ex-
emplified by the letters of Comrade Bcdacht, l)m-
trict Organizer of Illinois to the CEC.

3. From December 1926 till December 1927, in-
cluding 9 months of the miners' strike, the Love-
stone majority failed to publish a left wing miners''
organ. This was due on the one hand to the under-
estimation of the struggle and on the other to yield-
ing to the demand of the so-called ' progressives
(Brophy, Hapgood, etc.) that no criticism of Lewis
should he made during the strike.

4. For six months no effort; were put forth to es-
tablish a left wing miners' relief organization and
relief campaign, which offered exceptionally favor-
able means for the left wing to establish raasa con-
tacts. This relief organization could only have been
built by an open, fight against the Lewis machine no J
the A F of L bureaucracy.

T. Factional jugglery in the anthracite distri.ts.
This was based upon the established principle of the
Lovestone group of keeping minority comrades from
key positions. By placing incompetent organisers in
charge of the Party apparatus and !.iy carrying on a
sharp factional war, the whole campaign in the an-
thracite was gravely injured.

6. Failure to initiate in time and to prosecute vigor-
ously the campaign to organise the unorganized in
Western Pennsylvania prior to the calling of "fhe
April 6th Strike and for the formation of a n»w
union. TO BE CONTINUED

assssssssssssaszasssssass

asms

HELP PUBLISH THE SUPPRESSED

DOCUMENTS OF THE RUSSIAN

OPPOSITION!

The Editors of The Militant are under-
taking the task of publishing all the sup-
pressed documents of the Russian Opposi-
tion, a treasure of Leninist litetjtture;, in
pamphlet form as well as serially in the col-
umns of The Militant. This material throws
a Marxian search-Kght on the historic events
of the past five years and draws the neces-
sary deductions for the tactics of the Coin-
nwnists in the great revolutionary struggles
which lie ahead. A study of this material,
hitherto prevented by its suppression, is
indispensible for the education of the Party.

Your help is needed in this revolutionary
work. Contribute to the fund for the pub-
lication of this material and the maintenance
of The Militant. Follow the example of a
group of Communist workers in New York
in pledging a regular contribution weekly or
monthly.
Use this Hank.

THE MILITANT,

Box 1 20, Madison Square Station
New York City.

I enclose S for the fund to publish

the suppressed writings of Trotsky, Radek and
other leaders of the Russian Opposition _in pamph-
let form and to sustain The Militant.

J. pledge a regular contribution of $

:vcry..

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY

tmm

Page 8

THE MIL1 TAN T

December 1, 1928.

Trotsky's Book and its Bourgeois Critics

The Real Situation in Russia, by Leon Trotsky. Translated by Max
Eastman. New York. Harcourt, Brace and Company. .-.89 p. *2.00
at bookstores or by mail postpaid from The Militant.

IN tins book, written by Trotsky at the height of
his powers as a revolutionary fighter and thinker,
is to be found,. for the first time in English, the
authentic platform of the Russian Opposition led
by him, and his annihilating reply to the five year
campaign of calumny and falsification which^ has
run unchecked and unanswered in the official Com-
munist press of the world.

This reply, after a silence of five years, consists
mostly of documentary proofs which completely
shatter the edifice of lies and which cannot but make
the Communist who has been fed exclusively on
official misrepresentation rub his eyes in wonder-
ment. The last letters of Lenin which show that
he foresaw the coming struggles and relied on Trot-
sky to defend his views contain information hitherto
unknown by our Party. This information is directly
opposite to all we have been told.

The other principle section of the book is the
Platform of the Russian Opposition prepared for
the Fifteenth. Party Congress. Contrary to
all Party procedure established under Lenin's
leadership, the Platform was outlawed and
refused official publication. Oppositionists who at-
tempted to print it illegally were thrown into prison.
It has never been published to this day by the Com-
munist International or by any of its affiliated
parties.

It is true that our Party, which had never seen
it. voted against it "unanimously" as did the other
parties, but its validity remains unchanged by these
machine-made votes. It is a document of Leninism
from the first word to the last. It is the platform
on the basis of which alone the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union can solve its problems on the rev-
olutionary path. The events themselves which have
been transpiring since the outlawing of the platform
and the expulsion and exile of its authors testify
to this in louder and more insistent tones every day.
We have been told many times that the Platform
of the Russian Opposition is "counter-revolution-
ary", "nienshevik", "social-democratic", etc. But,
strange* to relate, none of these classes and elements,
from the big bourgeoisie to its petty-bourgeois and
philistine retainers, appreciate it as such. Of course,
all enemies of our movement seek to exploit the con-
troversies' in our ranks, and the jailing and exiling
of the Opposition supporters was no exception.
Those who jailed and exiled them— and those whose
Occupation it is to defend this infamous crime — seek
to prove thereby that Trotsky is identified with the
imperialist enemies of Soviet Russia and their lac-
keys. But if we turn .to the columns of the bour-
geois press to read their sober estimate of Trotsky s
Platform we find a different, and a highly instruc-
tive story.

The authentic organs of Big Capital put their
thumbs down on this Platform. And that is not all.
The little hangers-on — from the pale, sanitary New
Republic to the scavenging Jewish Daily Forward,
from the bourgeois liberal Nation to the sex liberal
Modern Quarterly — all do the same.

The New York Times, the most authoritative
spokesman of American imperialism, reiterating
what it has already said in a score of editorials, says
in an unsigned review of "The Real Situation in
Russia" by Trotsky and "Leninism" by Stalin, on
July,29, 1928:

''Back of Trotsky's political grievance against Stalin
is his personal grievance ....

"When 'we turn from Trotsky to Stalin we find
instead of the feverish indignation of a disappointed
man the calm and confident arguments of a practical
executive who has had no difficulty in adjusting his
theories to the daily emergencies of power ....

"The publication of Trotsky's book will doubtless
turn some American Communists from Stalinists into
Trotskjans. But let us repeat, though it will not make
Stalin a hero in the eyes of the sinful bourgeoisie
it will probably cause them to rejoice' that he and not
Trotsky is exercising power in Moscow."

So bays the big dog of American imperialism. Let
us now turn to tKe New Republic which contains
a review of Trotsky's book, ii) its issue of November
7 from the pen of the well-known J. B. S. Hardman
(Salutsky), the literary henchman of the labor
fakers who rule the Amalgamated Clothing Work-
ers by black-jack and revolver — and expulsion of
Communists. We were assured only the other day
in the Statement of the C.E.C. that we would be able
to rely on the full support of Salutsky in our fight
for the platform of the Russian Opposition. But
Salutsky seems to have different ideas. In fact, if
you make allowances for the differences of style and

manner of expression common to literary people, you
will see that his ideas are essentially the same as
those of the New York Times. He says:

''Trotsky's criticism, obviously overemphasized, will
not convince those who are outside the struggle. His
repeated claims that he and not the Stalinites are true
to the tenets of Leninism will seem queer to the non-
orthodox. Indeed, why may not revolutionists oc-
casionally run out of the footsteps of canonized
authority? Nor will Stalin be destroyed by pointing
to the fact that Lenin had little use for him."

Salutsky goes a step farther and deals a blow at
this sentimental nonsense about the imprisonment
and exiling of the Oppositionists. He has made
editorial defense of the blackjacking of Communists
in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers union too
many times to have any squeamishness on this point.
He writes:

"Trotsky resents the violence which the Stalin reg-
ime employs against the Opposition, but Stalin did
not father the idea of a one-minded, strait-jacketed
party, intolerant of even friedly criticism. Lenin did.
Trotsky knows it, and he advanced the argument
that 'violence can play an »normous role, but only
under one condition — that it is subordinated to true
class policy'. But is not Stalin ready to say that his
is a true class policy?"

Let the apostles of violence against Communists
study the writings of Salutsky. They can get some
cleyer .arguments from him. They will also find
that this "ally" of Trotsky has a most unique way
of "supporting" him:

"Trotsky wishes the party preserved in its revolu-
tionary virginity. He wishes it to remain a party of
no compromise, of no trading with capitalism, the
enemy. Not so Stalin. He has his ear to the ground.
He senses that the early revolutionary zeal is over.
Not only the country -is tired, the revolutionists them-
selves are. One may arouse their patriotism for
self-defense, but it would be difficult to move them
to a crusading march. Hence his theory of 'Socialism
in one country'. The Soviet State is a reality. Stalin
seeks to preserve it . . . ."

Finally there is the review of Trotsky's book in
the. "liberal" Nation of November 14, 1928, by
Albert Rhys Williams, which does nothing but ex-
pose Williams as a petty-bourgeois philistine of the
grossest sort. For this mere journalist the world-
shaking problems raised by the Opposition are re-
solved into four simple "truths": That the peasant
is the real "hero" of the Russian revolution; that
the struggle is one between individual leaders; that
the documents presented in Trotsky's book have been
printed before in the Party press and not suppressed ;
and that the exiling, imprisonment and disemploy-
ment of Opposition workers and leaders is a* jocular
business which even the Opposition takes in the
spirit of good, healthy fun.

Williams declares that the documents printed in
Trotsky's book were published and not outlawed or
suppressed. This is a conscious, deliberate and typi-
cally American journalistic falsehood. The Platform
of the Opposition was never, to this very day, print-
ed in the Russian or international Party press. For
proof of this turn to Imprecor., Vol. 7, No. 64,
published Nov. 17, 1927. There in a report of
Stalin's speech at the meeting which expelled Trot-
sky is a whole section which begins "Why did we
not print the well known 'Platform of the Opposi-
tion' ", and ends "These were the reasons which
compelled us to refuse the publication of the 'plat-
form of the Opposition' ",

The section of Trotsky's book dealing with the
falsification of history by the official apparatus has
not been, and is not now printed anywhere in the
official Party press. The testament of Lenin, first
denied as a forgery but now admitted to be genuine,
was not printed anywhere in the Party press. In
short, 99 per cent of the material contained in this
book of Trotsky's has been either suppressed or out-
lawed by the machinery and press of the C.P.S.U.,
the Comintern and its national sections.

So much for Williams' attempt to convince the
American Communists that they have already had
adequate opportunity to study this material which
has never been printed before. But it is in his
treatment of the persecution and violence against
the Opposition that he reaches the lowest depths of
Philistinism. According to this shallow "feature-
writer" the whole thing was a comradely joke, ac-
companied by merriment on all sides. He recites
that the comrades of one victimized Oppositionist
gave him a party on the eve of his departure. For
Williams this is proof that exile is a happy event.
"A real old time Russian vecherinka," says this
trifling dilettante. According to him the revolu-
tionist who does not whine under punishment does
not feel it. If he had utilized his literary conne-

ctions with our own American revolutionary move-
ment in the days when scores and even hundreds
were being sent to prison, he could easily have
learned that the last nights of freedom for many
of them going off to serve long sentences was made
the occasion for parties in their honor at which
there was no wailing by the victims, and with equal
intelligence he could have passed off the whole affair
as a good-natured jest. We might ask this com-
placent word-juggler, however, to explain the humor
in the imprisonment of George Andreytchine and of
scores of others who attempted to print the Platform
of the Opposition which he says was printed legally.
We might ask him for proof that the hundreds and
even thousands of Communist workers who were
expelled from the Party and simultaneously de-
prived of employment for supporting the Opposition
had obsolutely no hard feelings about the matter.

The philistine article of Williams is reprinted
from the bourgeois liberal Nation by the Daily
Worker with a eulogistic introduction in which the
editor, Robert Minor refers to Trotsky's book as
"counter-revolutionary." This, however, does not
of itself make Trotsky's case hopeless. It will be
remembered that Minor once wrote against Lenin,
using for his medium of expression the capitalist
press. Minor "changed his mind a little" about
Lenin. Why should we not be optimists and trust
that he will 'also learn better in the case of Trotsky?

J. P. C.

Trotsky, Wolfe and
The Forward

In that monstrous swindle which the Party for
its own honor will yet repudiate, the booklet by
Bertram D. Wolfe on "The Trotsky Opposition. Its
Significance for American Workers," the author at-
tempts to prove that among the international "allies"
of the Russian Opposition is to be found the yellow
socialist Jewish Daily Forward. Such an attempt
would undoubtedly meet with failure at the hands
of ordinary mortals, but for such an expert as Wolfe
it seemed to meet with practically no difficulty.
After all, we have here an intrepid warrior who
once appropriated the Constitution of the United
States, the United States Marine Corps, aye, the very
battleships themselves, with one fell swoop of his
best agit-prop pen ....

It is, fortunately, not difficult to find out just
where the Forward stands. That can be discovered,
not by a perusal of Wolfe's romancings- — to speak
politely — , but by clipping the Forward itself.

In its issue of Wednesday, November 21, 1928,
page 8, it has a leading article by its feature writer,
Zivion (Dr. B. Hoffman). Hoffman writes on
the expulsion of Cannon, Abern and Shachtman
from the Party and greets it gleefully (just as every
enemy of the Party will hail the removal from the
Party of its revolutionary fighters).

At the same time he is careful to disassociate him-
self from the political platform and proposals of the
Russian Opposition. He writes, literally, as fol-
lows:

"And let no one be suspicious that the opinions of
Trotsky and his Opposition appeal to me. I have
on more than one occation expressed the opinion that
Trotsky's program would be the greatest calamity for
Soviet Russia. Because Trotsky's program is a good
deal more Communistic than Stalin's; and if Soviet
Russia is in such a bad condition with Stalin's reform-
ed Communist program, then how much greater would
be the troubles in Soviet Russia if Trotsky's con-
sistent Communist program would be adopted?"

The position of the Forward is the position of the
yellow social-democracy everywhere. It is true that
they utilize, as they have done and 'will continue to
do in every such situation, any and every difficulty
and difference of opinion that may exist in the
Workers State and the ranks of the Communist
movement. But on the question of the political con-
tent of Trotsky's platform, the Forward has been
and is following the lead of the New York Times
and the other authentic organs of the big bourgeoisie
who have nothing but condemnation and hatred
for it.

Wolfe's attempt to identify the Forward with
Trotsky is of a piece with his whole compendium of
falsehood. Lying about Trotsky, an occupation safe
enough when there were no opportunities for refuta-
tion, becomes highly dangerous now that the means
for the latter are at hand. The sooner Wolfe, who
is known for speed, runs away from this danger
the better it will be for him.

^«%« Semi-Monthly Organ of the Opposition Group in the Workers (Communist) Party of America

I W\ £\ "It is necessary that evety member of the Party should study calmly and with the greatest objectivity, first the substance of the differences of

■ I ■ W^ opiaion, and then the development of the struggles within the Party. Neither the one nor the other can be done unless the documents of both

J| MM ^T j-Jfe, ^^ published. He who takes somebody's word for it is a hopeless idiot, who can be disposed of with a simple gesture of the hand."— Lestua

MILITANT

VOL. 1. NO. 3.

NEW YORK, N. Y., DECEMBER 15, 1928.

PRICE 5 GETSfl'S'

The July Plenum and the Right Danger

A short few weeks ago, the official Party press carried the first stories
from Moscow about the "opening" of a new struggle within the C. P. S. U.
These stories revealed that the struggle between the Right wing (Rykov-
Tomsky) and the Center (Stalin),, with Bucharin playing the customary buf-
fer roluj could no longer be concealed behind the curtains of the Political
Bureau of C. P. S. U. and had broken out in the Moscow and other organi-
sations of the Party, where advance "scouts" for the Right wing had been pre-
senting in the lower units of the Party the policies already proposed by Rykov-
Tomsky-Kalinin in the Political Bureau. The dispatches in the Party press,
however, throw no b'ght on the actual situation and the real issue at stake.,

The entire course of the present developments in the C. P. S. U. was
predicted with amazing precision by comrade Trotsky in his platform as far
back as the 15th Party Copgress (1927) and in the following suppressed arti-

cle written in July of this year. Just as Stalin' fruitlessly attempted to deny the
existence of a Right danger, as- analyzed by Trotsky then, so he is now
trying to deny the existence of this danger in the Political Bureau (Rykov,
etc.), and continues to lull the membership of the C. P. S. U. and the Com-
intern into a false security. The article of Trotsky printed below was abso-
lutely correct when it was written, and is even more correct now. It throws a
penetrating searchlight upon the present situation within the Soviet Union
Party, exposes the inexorable class forces represented by the contending
groups, and proves again the irrefutable accuracy of the predictions and pro-
gram of the Leninist Opposition. This article was sent to the Sixth Congress
of the Communist International but was not distributed to the delegates. ,It
is printed here for the first time in English. Other suppressed documents of
equal importance will be printed in subsequent issues of The Militant.

THE report read by Rykov on July 13 at the
meeting of the Moscow Party workers on the
outcome of the July Plenum of the Central Com-
mittee 1 was an event of capital political importance.
Here was expounded the program of the most au-
thoritative representative of the right wing, carry-
ing his banner to the tribune if not entirely un-
furled, at least half-way. In his report Rykov did
not pause an instant upon the program of the^Com-
munist International; he did not even mention it.
He devoted his speech exclusively to the question
of the. grain collections. Moreover it is not with-
out good reason that his report was delivered in the
tone of a victor. The Right has issued entirely
victorious from its first skirmish with the Center,
after, four or five months of "left" politics. The
July Plenum of the Central. Committee marks the
first victory of Rykov aye* Stalin,: gained fobfi sure
with the consent oi the latter. The essential idea
of Rykov's report is. that thg swerve towards the left
which occurred io February was only an episode due
to extraordinary ctrcunastances, that this episode
Qught to, be buried and forgotten/that we must also
lay ©n the shelf not ^lyAiside 107, a bat also what
appeared in Pravda in February, that wc must
abandon the former course and turn" not to the left
but to ; the right— aijd that the more brusquely this
is done the better. To clear the road Rykov ack-
nowledged ( he would not do otherwise before the
accusing facts) three of his small errors: "First, at
the moment when the crisis arose I judged it to
be less profound than it really was; but, second, I
thought that thanks to extraordinary measures we
would succeed in overcoming completely this crisis
of grain supply. Wc did not succeed. Third, I
hoped that the whole campaign of grain collection
would be carried on in reliance on the poor peasant,
and maintaining in perfect stability our union with
the masses of middle peasants. Upon this point also
I was mistaken."

Now this whole crisis of grain supply, with all
the political phenomena which accompanied it, was
foreseen by the opposition in its counter-theses, 3
which showed Rykov accurately all that he did not
comprehend and did not foresee. It was just in
order to avoid tardy and exaggerated administrative
measures, adopted in haste and without coordina-
tion, that the Opposition proposed in good season
a forced loan of grain from the rich elements of
the villages. 4 To be sure this measure also was an
exceptional one. The entire preceding policy had
made exceptional measures inevitable. If the loan
had been made methodically and soon enough, that
would have reduced to a minimum these adminis-
trative excesses, which are too high a payment for

By L. D. TROTSKY

very slight material results. Measures of admin-
istrative violence do not belong to a correct course.
They are the price we pay for an incorrect one.
Thc-attempt of Rykov to attribute to the Opposition
a tendency to eternalize these procedures a la Rykov,
derived from the period of Military Communism,
is purely and simply ridiculous. From the very first
the Opposition considered these perquisitions in the
country, the re-establishment of flying squadrons,
etc, not as the beginning of a new course but as
the failure of the old. Article 107 on hoarding is
not an instrument of a Leninist policy, jt is one of
the crutches of the Rykov policy. In trying ta pre-
sent as a program of the Opr^'toon administrative
measures i of economic disorganisation for which he
is himself entirely: responsible, Rykov is behaving
as all petty-bourgeois politicians do, for they always
in such a situation stir up the peasant against the
Communist by depicting the latter as a bandit and
an expropriator.

What is, the significance of the change of* course
in February? It was an acknowledgement of the
lagging, of industry, of the threatening class-differ-
entiation in the country, and of the extreme Kulak

danger. What should wc deduce from it in order
to establish the new line of conduct ? A change m
the distribution of the national income which should
divert to the industries a part of what had gone to
the Kulak, thereby diverting it from capitalism to-
wards socialism, and accelerating the development
of both light and heavy industry. Contrary to the
article which appeared in February in Pravda
(which merely repeated in this question the argu-
ments of the Opposition) Rykov discovered the
cause of the collection crisis, not in the lagging of
the dcvelopmeat of industry but in that of agricul-
ture. To offer such an explanation is to make i*m
of the Party and of the working class. It is Mo
deceive the Party in order to accomplish a swerve
to the right. It is the old way of posing this ques-
tion in the manner of the Ustrialov professors-.
It is perfectly obvious that our agriculture is inco-
herent, scattered, backward, that it has a barbarous
character, and that this backwardness is the, funda-
mental cause of all the difficulties. But to demr<id
on this basts, as Rykov docs, a diversion of the im-.vt.-
ciaj : resources due to industry towards the individ' ml
peasant estate, is to choose not only the bourgeois
road but the road of the agrarian bourgeoisie, of the
reactionary bourgeoisie. It is to become a Soviet

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

GANGSTERISM!

1) The Plenum, of the Centra] Committee of tlic C.t'.S.L'. which
was held .in July 1928, was devoted to economic, difficulties and to
the Congress of the International, which was to convene immediately
after. A bitter struggle arose at this Plenum, or more exactly behind
the scenes of the Plenum, between the Stalin and Rykov factions.
As appears later, it was in fact the Right which carried the day, with
Rykov and Bucharin at its head.

2) Article 107 of, the Penal Code deals with the struggle against
speculation and the fraudulent concealment of surplus merchandize.
This article was widely applied last Spring as an extraordinary meas-
ure for requisitioning, grain -from the peasants.

1) This refers to the Counter-theses, which the Opposition opposed
to the official theses presented by the Central Committee at the 1 5th
Congress of the Party. These Counter-theses, which appeared at the
time in the discussion supplement of Pravda, were devoted to questions
of Party policy in the country and the five-year plan for the develop-
ment of industry.

4) . Foreseeing the imminent crisis, of .grain hoarding, the Opposi-
tion proposed ■ in its- pkttform -a- forced loan .of ; grain -from the rich
elements of the villages which should yield 150,000,000 to 200,000,000
puds.

On Monday evening, December 10th, two women
comrades, Maria Reinl and Pauline Gutringcr,
who were selling The Militant on the sidewalk in
front of the Workers Center on Union Square, New
York City, were set upon by an organized squad
which had been detailed to execute the slogan given
out by Party officials to "prevent the sale of The
Militant at all costs and beat up the Oppositionists."

"Get out of here, you counter-revolutionary pro-
stitutes!" This, and similar commands, mixed with
unprintable obscenities, were hurled at the two work-
ing class women before a crowd of several hundred
which quickly gathered

Screaming epithets and calling the women com-
rades every name in the vocabulary of the under-
world, they seized the two comrades by the arms and
began to push them away. The Communist women
resisted and stood their ground. The papers were
torn from their hands. Comrade Rein! attempted
to recover some of the papers and received a fist
blow in the face.
The police appeared and immediady seizid ike two
women leaving their attackers unmolested. The
two Communist women who had attempted to sell
The Militant on the sidewalk were then forcibly
driven away by the police.

These events are the -direct result of a planned
campaign of incitement by Party officials who them-
selves never yet took part in a fight and who lacked
even the courage to participate in the attack on the
women comrades. Wolfe, who ran away -from the
Party like a craven during the Palmer raids and
also after the Bridgeman raid, directly incited to
physical violence against the Opposition in his speech
at the Workers Forum on November 25. Dr. Mar-
koff in his speech to the Italian Party membership
meeting on November 28 said, "The Oppositionists

are worse than Mussolini and his Fascists. We
must beat them politically and physically." Party
comrades have been directly instructed by such
functionaries as Miller and Benjamin that they must
not speak' to the members of the Opposition but
should spit upon them. More than that, physical
assaults against comrades attempting to sell The
Militant on the streets, have been directly discussed
and planned in committee meetings of the Party in
the New York district, where every kind of bour-
geois and anti-Communist literature is freely sold
in the Party's book-store.

The methods of violence which the bureaucrats are
copying from the labor fakers are necessary only for
a false policy. Their methods condemn their policy
and will defeat it, for Communist ideas arc stronger
than the gangster's fist.

None of the Foster comrades participated in the
shameful gangster attack. It is primarily the pro-
letarian revolutionists in the Party ranks who must
defeat this course. They must burn the incipient
Fascist tactics out of the Party with a white hot
iron. They must compel a free discussion of the
disputed questions in a normal Communist way.

For our part we will take up the challenge of
gangsterism incited and organized by poltroons who
never yet took a blow on the picket line or in a raid.
Our task and duty is to reach the Communist work-
ers with our views. Since we are deprived of our
Party rights by expulsion and suppression we must
do this through The Militant. We will sell the
Militant before every workers' institution and meet-
ing. The rights of the revolutionary workers aa?e
higher than the rights of landlordism. We will
maintain these rights by struggle. In this struggle
our strength will be multiplied by steadfast belief
in our views and by our courage to defend them.

Pagel

THE MILITANT

December IT, 192S.

The July Plenum and the Right Danger

CONTINUED FROlvi PRECEDING PAGE
caricature of the "Friends of the ^People," of the
Zemstvos of 1880. Agriculture cannot be elevated
except With the aid of industry. There exist no
other levers. Nevertheless our industry is frightful-
ly backward in relation to the peasant economy, in-
coherent, scattered and barbarous ast hat is. The
lagging of industry is observable not only by com-
parison with the general historic aspirations of peas-
ant economy, but also by comparison with the buying
capacity of the peasant. To confound these two
questions, one having to do with the general histori-
cal backwardness of country as against town, the
other having to do with the backwardness of the
cities in face of the present need of merchandize
in the villages, is to capitulate and abandon the
hegemony of the cities over the country.

Our agriculture In its present form is infinitely
backward open in comparison to industry, which is
backward enough. But to conclude that this con-
sequence of the operation throughout centuries of a
law of unequal development of the different parts
of an economy, can be overcome or even attenuated
by reducing the already insufficient funds allocated
to industrialization, would be like combatting illiter-
acy by shutting down the institutions of higher
learning. That would be to tear out the very
roots of historic progress. Although our industry
has a type of production and technique infinitely
superior to that of agriculture, not only is it not big
enough to play a directive and transforming role —
a truly socialist role ' towards tne country, but
it is not even capable of satisfying the current needs
of the village market, and it thereby holds up the
development of this market.

It is exactly upon this basis that the collection
crisis became so sharp. It was not caused either by
the general backward historic character of the coun-
try, or by an alleged too rapid advance of industry.
On February 15, Pravda informed us that three
years "had not passed without leaving their mark,"
that the country was enriched, that is to say especial-
ly the Kulaks, that in the face of the delay in the
development of industry this must inevitably bring
a hoarding crisis. Directly contradicting this in-
terpretation, Rykov judges that the mistake com :
mitted during the last year by the Party heads was
on the contrary to have excessively speeded up, in-
dustrialization and that it is necessary to slacken
the pace, diminish its share of the national revenue,
and utilize the funds thus made available as sub-
sidies for the rural economy, especially in its pre-
dominant private property form. It is by means
of such procedures that Rykov hopes in a very short
time to double the yield per acre. But he says

cannot doubt that functionaries who really know their
business, are consoling the politicians by assuring
them that it will be possible to recoup upon other
raw materials produced by the peasants, what is to
be paid in excess for grain. But such talkjs pure
charlatanism. In the first place, the worker con-
sumes bread and not the' raw materials utilized by
the machine; the raising of the price of grain will
thus strike directly at the budget of the worker.
In the second place, we will not succeed any better
in indemnifying ourselves through the other peas-
ant products i fit is first decided to cover the. losses
of the Left zig-zag course with the ruble. In general
maneuvers of retreat are carried out with more
loss than gain. This is still more true of a retreat
as disordered as that marked by the decisions of
July as against the resolutions adopted in February.
The raising of the price of grain, even conceived
as an exceptional and extraordinary measure, as a'
kind of article 107 read backwards, conceals in
itself art enormous danger: it only accentuates the
contradictions which gave birth to the hoarding
crisis.

This rise in prices strikes only the consumers,
that is, the worker and the poor peasant whose
harvest is not sufficient for his personal consump-
tion. It is not only a bounty to the Kulak and the
well-off peasant, but a still further increase of class
differentiation. If industrial products are lacking
already under the old price of grain, the lack will
be still greater after the rise in prices and the in-
crease in the quantity of grain harvested. This will
amount to a new extension of the 'shortage of in-
dustrial merchandize, and to a continuation of 'the
growth of social differentiation in the country. To
combat the hoarding crisis by increasing the price
of grain, is to enter decisively upon the road of the
depreciation of the chervonetz — in other words, it
is to quench your thirst with salty water. This
would be so, even if it were an isolated and exception-
al measure. But in the mind of Rykov this
rise in prices is in no wise an extraordinary
proceeding.. It is one of the essential parts of the
Rykov policy of sliding towards capitalism. Upon
this road currency inflation is only a technical detail.
On the subject of the danger of inflation, Rykov
says with a meaingful air; "In the meantime the
buying capacity of the ruble continues firm." What
does this mean: "in the meantime"? It means: Un-
til the sale of the new harvest at increased prices,
in the face of a shortage of industrial products.
But when the inflation, arrives, Rykov t will say to
the workers, whose wages will fall inevitably in
such a situation : "You remember I said to you 'in
the meantime' ." And then he will begin to develop

the part of his program on which he now remains
silent. It is impossible to solve the crisis by entering
the road of the NEO-NEP without imparing the
monopoly of foreign trade.

At the same time that Rykov was celebrating this
triumph, Stalin,' the vanquished, made a speech at
Leningrad. In his really impotent speech (it ac-
tually makes one sick to read it), Stalin presents
the bounty now acorded to the rich elements of the
villages and extorted from the workers and the
poor peasants, as a new consolidation of the bridge
uniting town and country. (How many of these
consolidations have we had already ! ) Stalin doesn't
even attempt to show how he intends to avoid the
contradictions which are closing in on him. He has
just got out of the difficulties produced by Article
107, and proceeds to tangle himself up in those of
the rise in prices. Stalin is merely falling back on
the same general phrases about the "bridge" which
have already been repeated ad nauseam. As if the
problem of the "bridge" could be solved by a phrase,
a formula, a promise, as if one could believe (any-
one, that is, except Stalin's docile functionaries)
that if the next harvest is good, it will be able by
a miracle to overcome the disproportion which has
only been aggravated by the three previous harvests.
Stalin is afraid of the Rykovist solution from the
Right, but he is still more afraid of the Leninist
solution. He is waiting. He is turning his back
and occupying himself with manipulating the ap-
paratus. Stalin is losing time under the impression
that he is gaining it. After the convulsive shock
of February we are now again in the presence of
"Khvostism" in all its pitiable impotence. The
speech of Rykov has a totally different tone. When
Stalin dodges the issue by keeping still, it is because
he has nothing to say. Rykov, on the contrary,
leaves certain things unmentioned because he doesn't
want to say too much. The policy of raising the
price of grain (especially accompanied as it was by
an expose of the Rykov motives in explaining the
abrogation of the Left zig-zag in the Spring) con-
stitutes, and cannot but constitute, the beginning of
a change of orientation towards the Right, a* deep
and perhaps decisive change. Legal barriers e-
rected upon this road, such as the limitation of lead-
ings, and of the employ of wage labor, will be abol-
ished with a stroke of the bureaucratic pen, along
with the monopoly of foreign trade — at least unless
these people break their heads against the iron wall
of the proletarian vanguard. The logic of the
Right course can very quickly become irrevocable.
All the false hopes in the false policy of the Right,
all these reckless calculations in general, the loss of
time, the minimizing of contradictions, the mental'
reservations, and the diplomacy, are nothing but an
effort to put the workers to sleep, to support the
enemy, to promote, whether consciously or uncon-

nothing as to the means of disposing of this doubled ............. sciously, the Thermidor. In the speech of Rykov

yield on the market, that is to say, of exchanging
it for the products of an industry whose rate of
development will have grown still slower. It is im-
possible that Rykov does not raise this question in
his own mind. A doubled harvest would entail a
five or ten times multiplied demand of merchandize
by the rural economy; the dearth of industrial pro-
ducts would thus also be multiplied several time*.
It is inconceivable that Rykov does not understand
this very simple correlation. Why then does he not
divulge the secret which is to enable him to triumph
in the future over this disproportion, destined to
grow monstrously? Because the hour has not yet
come. For politicians of the Right, words are silver
but silence is gold. Rykov moreover had already
spent too much silver in his report. But it is not
difficult to estimate the value of his gold. An
increase in the rural economy of the capacity to buy
merchandize, faced by a backward movement in in-
dustry, would mean quite simply an increase in the
importation of manufactured products from abroad,
destined both for the towns and the country. There
does not, and -there cannot exist any other alterna-
tive. As a result, the necessity of entering upon
this course will be so imperious, the pressure of the
growing . disproportion will be so menacing, that
Rykov will decide to coin his gold reserve and will
demand out loud the abolition — or a reduction that
is equivalent to abolition — of the monopoly of
foreign trade.

This is exactly the plan of the Right which our
platform predicted. From now on it will be carried
Openly to the tribune, if not as a whole, at least in
one of its very considerable parts. As it appears
from the whole speech of Rykov the raising of the
price of grain is hypothecated upon that plan. It is
above all a bounty to the Kulak. It permits him
to lead along with still more assurance the middle
peasants explaining to him: You see, I have made
%!» pay me well for the damage caused by Article
107. It is in struggle that we will win our rights,
as s^ our masters; the Social Rfevolutioriarics. On*

\ T. J. O'Flaherty for the j

: Opposition :

■ ■

; Tom O Flaherty, the most popular Com- ■

: munist propagandist in America and the writer \

I of the famous Daily Worker column "As We :

! See It" and a revolutionist of many years' ■

■ standing, has issued a statement setting forth :

J his unconditional support of the Platform of *

; the Russian Opposition and his solidarity with ■

■ all comrades expelled for these views. :

; "After studying n:v; ir.nterif.l on the ques- :

J tion of the Trotsky line in the C.P.S.U. and •

: the Comintern," said comrade O'Flaherty in ■

■ his statement, "I have come to the conclusion :

: that the line of the Russian Opposition led by ;

; comrade Trotsky is the correct Leninist line :

■ and therefore I associate myself with the posi- ;

: tion taken by comrade Cannon and his asso- ■

j dates in the Workers (Communist) Party of jj

I America. They were unjustly expelled from S

: the Party for attempting to explain to the *

; ^membership of the Party the political ine ■

I really advocated by Trotsky in the C.P.S.U. \

■ and the Comintern." ■

; Comrade O'Flaherty's statement, sets forth *

■ his agreement with the position of the Russian •

J Opposition on such specific questions as Social- :

■ ism in one country, the Anglo-Russian Com- ■

'. mittee and the problems of the Chinese Revo- I

; lution, and brands the accusation of "counter- •

■ revolutionary" hurled as its supporters as ridic- ■

• ulous phrase-mongering having no basis in Z
; actual fact and carrying no conviction. ■

: Comrade O'Flaherty, who has been removed I

• from his position on the Daily Worker, has ■

■ promised to contribute regularly to The ■

I lUilitant. :

•. »

■ •■••iiiimiaaiMMiiaiil •■■■■■hiihiiiiiiiiiii

commenting on the resolutions of the July Plenum,
the Right wing has thrown down the gage to the
October Revolution. We must understand that.
We must take up the gage. We must immediately
and with all our might give the first blow to the
Right. The Right, in issuing its defiance, has fixed
its strategy in advance. For this it did not need any
great ingenuity. Rykov asserts that at the basis
of the Centrist tendencies of the Left there is "a
Trotskyist distrust of the possibility of building
Socialism on the basis of the Nep, and a desperate
panic before the Moujik." The struggle against
"Trotskyism" is the favorite hobby of those who
are beginning to slide. But if this sort of arguments
were fairly stupid on the lips of Stalin, they become
a pitiful caricature oil the lips of Rykov. It is just
here that he ought to'have remembered that silence
is gold. It is those who distrust the conquest oi
power by the proletariat in peasant Russia who are
really ■panic-striken before the Moujik. T hese
heroes of panic were seen on the other side of the
barricades of October. Rykov was one of them. 5
As for us, we were with Lenin and the proletariat,
for we never doubted one instant that the proletariat
was capable of leading the peasantry. The Rykov
policy of 1917 was only an abridged anticipation
of the present econmic tactic. At present he pro-
poses to surrender one after another the dominant
economic positions already conquered by the pro-
letariat to the elements of primitive capitalist ac-
cumulation. It is only thanks to the privileges
which have been conferred upon him these last
years by the falsification of history, that Rykov'
dares to describe as a panic the uncompromising

5)Rytov was in 1917 among the most resolute opponents of the'
seizure of power. Appointed a Commissar in the Government after
the Revolution of October, he Jeserted several days after with Zinoviev
and Kamcnev.

At the moment when the Mensheyiks and Social Revolutionaries
began their open struggle against the newly-formed Soyiet Govern?
ment, Rykov, Kamenev and Zinoviev derijanded a capitulation to
them and ;he fonhatidn'of a'coalHion. government.

When the Central Committee refused to agree to the Xonnatlon of'
such a government* they announced their rSmgnatio^'ffoiortn* "Central
Committee, and Rykov and softie other* d"e*erte4 the. pojftSShs in ifiS'
Government which had been conlufed'tp tfie'm by' the Party;

December IS, 1928.

THE MILITANT

Page 3

struggle carried on by the Opposition in defense of
the Socialist dictatorship. He attempts at the same
time to pass off as political courage his disposition
to capitulate to capitalism with his eyes wide open.

At present Rykov is directing his reactionary
demagogy, perfectly adapted to the psychology of
the small owner on the way to wealth, less against
the Opposition than against Stalin and the Center
who incline toward the Left. Just as in his time
Stalin directed against Zinoviev all the attacks
which Zinoviev had directed against "Trotskyism,"
so Rykoy is now learning to repeat the same opera-
tion against Stalin. Who sows the wind reaps the
whirlwind. You can't. play with political ideas.
They are more dangerous than fire. The myths,
legends, slogans of an imaginary "Trotskyism," have
not become an attribute of the Opposition, but cer-
tain classes have seized upon them, and thus these
conceptions lead their own life. To drive them more
broadly and. deeply, the agitation of Stalin had
to be a hundred times more brutal than that of
Zinoviev. Now it is Rykov 's turn. One can
imagine what persecutions the Right is going to turn
loose when relying openly upon the property in-
stinct of the Kulak. . We must not forget that if
the Rykovists form the tail of the Centrists,
they have in their turn another, still, heavier, tail.

Immediately behind Rykov, come those who,
as Pravda has already recognized, want to live in
peace with all classes — that is to say, want once
more to force the worker, the hired man and die
poor peasant to submit peacefully to the master.
Behind them looms already the small employer,
greedy, impatient, vindictive, his arms raised and
the knife within reach. And behind the small em-
ployer, beyond the frontier, the real boss stands
ready with dreadnoughts, airplanes and asphyxiating
gases. "We must not let ourselves become panic-
striken. Let us go on building as we have in the
past." That is what the little Judases of the Right
are preaching, putting the workers to sleep, mobiliz-
ing the property holders, preparing the Thermidor.

Such is the present position of the men on the
chess board. Such is the veritable mechanism motiv-
ating the classes. Rykov, as we have already said,
deceives the Party in stating that the Opposition
would like to perpetuate the exceptional' measures
to which we are reduced, to our shame, after elevn
years of dictatorship by the policy pursued since the
death of Lenin. The Opposition has said clearly
what it ha.d to say in its documents sent to the 6th
Congress. But Rykov was perfectly right when he
said: The principle task of the "Trotskyists" is
to prevent this Right wing from triumphing. That
at least is true. The victory of the Right wing
would be the first step leading to Thermidor. After
a victory of the Right wing it would no longer
be possible to rise again to the dictatorship by the
sole method of inner-Party reform. The Right
wing is the handle on which the enemy classes are
pulling. The success of this wing will be but a
temporarily disguised victory of the bourgeoisie over
the proletariat. Rykov is right. At present our
principal task is to prevent the triumph of the Righ*.
In order to achieve this, it is necessary not to put
the Party to sleep as the Zinovievs, Piatakovs and
Others are doing, but to sound the alarm ten times
as loud all along the line. We say to our Party
and to the Communist International: Rykov is be-
ginning openly to surrender the Revolution of
October to the enemy classes. Stalin is standing
now on one foot, now on the other. He is beating
a retreat before Rykov and firing to the Left.
Bucharin is lulling the mind of the Party with his
reactionary scholasticism.

The Party must lift its voice. The proletarian
vanguard must take its destiny in its own hands.
The Party must discuss broadly the three courses:
Right, Center and Leninist. The Party needs the
reinstatement of the Opposition into its ranks. The
Party has need of a Congress honestly prepared for
and honestly chosen.
'Alma-Ata, July 23, 1928.

._....__.„......

Published twice a month by the Opposition Group in the

Workers (Communist) Party of America
Address all mail to: P. O. Box 120, Madison Square
Station, New York, N. Y.

Publishers address at 340 East 19th Street, New York,
N. Y. — Telephone: Gramercy 3411.

Subscription rate: $1.00 per year. Foreign, $1.50
5c per copy Bundle rates, 3c per copy.

Editor Associate Editors

Martin Abern
James P. Cannon Max Shachtman

Maurice S pector

Whither Foster?

VOL. I.

DECEMBER 15, 192S.

No. J.

Application tor entry as second class nuuer pending at the Post
Office at New York, N. Y,

AN impression prevails which, for the sake of
absolute and impartial truth, should be cor'
rected. The opinion that the B.C.C.I., under Bu-
charm's leadership, always and under all circum-
stances is supporting Lovestone and Pepper in all
things is not quite so. It is true that Lovestone
and Pepper, not to mention Wolfe, receive the
necessary political support to maintain their artifi'
cial hold on the party apparatus. But along with
this whole-hearted backing to the opportunist ad-i
venturers go occasional "concessions" to the Foster
group and these "concessions" are the bread they
live by. After all, half a loaf is better than a crust
and a crust is better than a crumb.

The arrival of one of these crusts of concession
was made known through the columns of the
Da'ily Worker on Dec. 3rd. It was a cable urging
the Polcom to allow the Foster group to "express
its dissociation from Trotskyism'." This cable
resulted in the publication on the same day of the
Bittelmanite statement of the Foster group. Up till
then the document had been suppressecl by the
Lovestone majority which had been unfairly hog-
ging the credit for the fight against the "Trotsky-
ist", right or left — take your choice — "danger".
This illuminating document of Bittelmanism had
been living a furtive life, so to speak, being
smuggled around as an illegal work, surreptitious-
ly shoved under back doors, etc. The cable of the
E.C.C.I. legalised the statement and made its pub-
lication possible.

The Foster group leaders, who appreciate all
small favors, were very happy about this "victory".
But we believe the jubilation was ill-placed. Sober
reflection on the part of anyone able to read the
thesis of Bittelman through will lead to the conclu-
sion that the decision which authorized its publi-
cation was in reality a defeat for the Foster group.
It "would have been more merciful to suppress the
document altogether and to order the confisca-
tion of the extant copies.

The statement begins with a plaintive wairabout
being deprived of the "credit" for promptly re
porting our Right deviations on Left Trotskyism
to the Right Wing Polcom. Being ourselves fair
and impartial and wanting to see everyone get his
due, we wish to say a word in favor of this claim.
It is an absolute and indisputable fact that the
Foster group dutifully furnished this evidence to
Lovestone and Pepper, and they are fully entitled
to all the honor and glory which services of this
kind usually bring to those who perform them.
If the "leadership" of Foster and Bittelman in the
heroic battle against "Trotskyism" lasted only for
a day, or, more precisely for an hour, arid was
strictly limited .to the role of information-givers,
it is not because of lack of ambition on their part.
The greater energy and initiative of the Polcom
majority and their control of the apparatus, on
the one hand, and the determined opposition of
the proletarian supporters "of the Foster group to
such a course on the other, combined to frustrate
their aspirations in this case, as their plans are so
frequently frustrated by the inability to- see where
the second step leads when the first step is taken.

"The Right Danger in the American Party"
which the Foster group signed yesterday was a
straight-from-the-shoulder document. It said in
plain terms (and correctly) that "the main 'Hanger
comes from the Right" and said (also correctly)"
that the present leadership of the Party is the con-
sciously organised Right Wing. The Foster state-
ment of today crawls away from this straight-out
declaration and cannot find room in a document
of six or seven thousands words to directly char'
acterize the opportunist charlatans who control the
party. The plain words of yesterday which called
these adventurers the Right Wing and the greatest
menace to the Party are emascuated into vague
talk about "opportunist tendencies" in the state-
ment of today. Nowhere is there a direct and
straight-forward characterisation of the present
leaders without which there can be no question
of a serious struggle against them. And further-
more — let the proletarian Communists of the Foster
group take note and remember — this "diplomatic
retreat" from the basic position taken at the Sixth
Congress is only a transition step to a further re
treat and an abandonment of the struggle after the
Convention. A part of the leadership of the Foster
group is moving directly to this. The pressure of
the rank and file of the Foster group who really
want to struggle against the Opportunist leader'
ship make such an immediate capitulation impossi-
ble. This explains the fact that the leaders of the
Foster group, lacking firmness and definiteness
of principle, are moving in zig-zags backward.

Right and Left' deviations, arising out of specific

objective conditions, represent obstacles to the class
development and victory of the proletariat. In the
struggle against them, as Lenin said, "Bolshevism
grew, gained strength and became hardened."
Lenin precisely defined the nature of these devia-
tions, explained their source and origin and gave
invaluable instruction for combatting them, en-
riching this instruction with illustrations from the
history of the Bolshevik Party. All this is lost hi'
sofar as the statement of the Foster group is con-
cerned. The whole business is reduced to a Chin'
ese puzzle of contradictions, inconsistencies and
light-hearted jugglery of words and formulae
which have nothing at all to do with serious p'oli'
tics.

According to the Bittelman evangel "deviations
to the Left in the American Party grow out of
the same objective situation as right deviations."
Moreover, right deviations are the same as Left
deviations, the Right being "a fatalistic attitude to-
ward American capitalism, toward the possibilities
of struggle against it and the opportunities of build-
ing up a mass Communist Party in the United
States", while the Left is "pessimism in the possi-
bility of building up a Communist Party in die
United States."

Thus Right is Left and Left is Right. The main
danger comes from the Right, and "Trotskyism"
which Foster and Bittelman called a social-demo-
cratic and counter-revolutionary tendency on Octo-
ber 16, is now re-baptized (after Stalin's latest
right-about-face speech on October 19) as a Left
deviation. The fight against it "as an organic part
of the' general struggle against the Right Danger,"
which they prescribed on October 16, is now re-
placed by a "merciless struggle on two fronts —
against the open Right Danger and against the
Trotsky Opposition led by Cannon." Then to
make everything absolutely clear, so that even a
Gomez can understand it, it is pointed out that the
Right Danger is the greatest, therefore the Left
must be expelled "to protect the Party from the
demoralizing effects of Trotskyism."

It would be a great error to identify this non-
sense with the actual standpoint of the great ma-
jority of the Foster group supporters. These are
proletarian and revolutionary, animated by a re-
lentless opposition to the opportunist adventurers
and the will to fight them— an attitude firmly
crystalized and maintained over a period of years,
and soundly based on experiences in the clas3
struggle. It is their misfortune, and the Party's
misfortune too, that their revolutionary antagon-
ism to the Lovestone faction is capitalized by such
"leaders" as the authors of this document and
thus deprived of real effectiveness in the struggle.
These leaders act as lightning rods, catching the
opposition sentiments of many worker-Commu-
nists, diverting them from their real objects and
running them into the ground.

A serious fight on their part to change the pres-
ent leadership of the Party is, of course, impossi,
ble with such a policy. The task of the proletar-
ian supporters of the Foster group is to break
through this contradiction and find a clear and
consistent line. That all their tendencies are in
this direction has already been clearly shown in
recent weeks. It was their pressure which has com-
pelled Foster and Bittelman to come forward with
proposals to moderate'the criminal expulsion policy
of the Lovestone majority. But the worker-Com-
munists must not be fooled or pacified by this
temporizing half-measure. It is impossible to fight
the opportunist leadership and at the same time
support in any way th'e expulsion of its real op-
ponents. The workers in the Foster group — the
great majority— who understand the disruptive
consequences of this expulsion policy and stand
opposed to it, must come out in the open against
it. The same holds true for the many who secretly
sympathize with. our whole position. Mere caucus
agitation only plays the game of small-scale caucus
politicians and serves the interest of the Right
Wing splitters.

'■■ ■■«■>■■>■■■■

" 5

: Benefit Performance for ;

: THE MILITANT :

: of :

: "SINGING JAILBIRDS" ;

: by Upton Sinclair •

I A New Playwrights Theatre Production jjj

: at :

■ PROVINCETOWN PLAYHOUSE ;

■ 133 Macdougal St. :
: TUESDAY EVENING, DEC. 18. i
; Curtain at 8 :40 Sharp. ■

Pifte 4

THE MILITANT

December 1?, 1928.

THE DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE COMI

CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE <, WHERE IS THE "SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC icians as a whole. They too "abstract" from the

.- i ^ n i • „^.„ ^u.„, i t ■ DEVIATION" world entity and from the imperialist epoch. They

Here is what Buchann wrote on the- subject in ,._,.«. r ,.l r- *.-£• i * i i /

, g ' t7 . J What I have said is more than sufficient to start out from the fiction of isolated development.

'•Revolutions are the locomotive, of history. The characterise Bucharin's theoretical position of They apply to the national phase of the world
kreplaceable engineer of that locomotive can even in yesterday and today, To characterise his political revolution a vague economic criterion. But their
Iwck-vird Russia be only the proletariat, but the methods one must recall that having selected in "sentence'" is different. The "leftism" of the
proletariat cannot stay within the limits of the prop- ^ statements written by the Opposition those authors of the draft lies in the fact that they turn
"Zf^^^s^oJ^ttlJt which are absolutely analogous with those which the Social Democratic evaluation inside out. How-
don which is being 'put on the order of the day' he himself (IN THIS CASE in full agreement ever, the position of the theoreticians of the
in Russia cannot be fulfilled within national bound- w f t h Lenin) wrote up to 192?, Bucharin erected Second International, no matter how much one
aries' Here the working class meets with an insur- on thdr basis the th of OU r '"Social Democratic would remodel it, is equally bad. One must take ^^^ ^^
mounuWe -ll_-(Take ^ b ^™-ukfe Deviation ,~ It appears that in the central question Lenin's position which simply REMOVES Bauer's 433C&3S&S3C&
by the battering ram of the INTERNATIONAL concerning the relations between the October Rev- position and Bauer s prognosis as the exercises of
WORKERS" REVOLUTION."— (Bucharin, "Class olution and the international revolution, the oppo- an elementary class.

Struggle and Revolution in Russia," page 34, Rus- s { t { on thinks , . the same as Otto Bauer who does That is how matters stand with the "Social

sian edition). admit he ibiht f Socialist construction Democratic deviation." Not we but the authors

One could not exp.es, himself more clearly. £ J h of the draft should consider themseIves rc i ated to

Such, were the views held by Buchann m 1917, , .. , , . ,„«.- , ,, \ °, . Ri,,f> r

c . T • , ., ', ^ . „ " - mi? been discovered only in 1924 and that everything »auer,

> years after Lemn s alleged change in 191>, . „ , , , , ' . ^ . , £ '■ T °

i ■ «.< r\ * : i. t> 1 *. «.„ ~u«. n u„„;„ that happened before that has been forgotten. It
baps tne October Revolution taught Buchann . „\. ^ j ^ i. ^

FOREWOR

two
Perkapi

fcftffcrently? We shall see

is all trusted to short memory.

THE DEPENDENCE OF THE U.S.S.R.
ON WORLD ECONOMY

With this issue The
tant prints the third
stallment of "The !
Program of the Cam
nist Internation: A
ticism of Fuudamen

la 1919, Bucharin wrote on the subject of the However, on the question of the nature ot the D ,. ecursor f the Dre sent crochets of the

»»Prr.lrtirian Dictator^hin in Russia and the World October Revolution, the Comintern settled its ac- V ie P ucu * sor ot me present prophets ot the

noletarian dictatorship in Russia and the World > nbiliii-w- nf national socialist society was no other than Herr by L D Trotskv

Revolution" in the theoretical organ oi the Comin- y™* 8 with Otto Bauer and other phihstineo of Describing in his article entitled "An document a maaeroiec

*i>rr Mvino. the Second International at the Fourth Congress, , , ,'„ ,' n ' g ,, , dracie enc «|eo n.n document, a mafterpiec

tern. Saying. _ . . ...... .2 Tor\la»-i»H Snrnliet- Sf-nfV th» r\rnc;rs»^f r>f inAonon, MarXISt'LeniniSt lfpratllre

ts>

Saymg: In mv sneech Ion the Question of the New Icon- Isola t ed Socialist State" the prospect of indepeiv Marxist-Leninist lfc'erature

"Under existing WORLD economy and th. con- *" ^p^^V^ ^S worid revdution\ dent socialist construction in Germany, the pro- f>-** d tyg&fA

sections between its parts, with the simultaneous omic roiicy ana me pro&pcts Or world revolution; !_,.,„. _r „a,:„l „„„,.„, „j,„„„„j ' ,u t ;u„„ sky to the Sixth World i

interdependence of the various national bourgeois authorised by the Central Committee, Otto Bauer s /f ana [ of Y c country advanced much further gress of the Coi^muiust

groups, IT STANDS TO REASON" (our em- position was outlined in a manner which expressed than that ot P r °g ressive Britain, Vollmar, in 1878, ternational. whfch fii

phasis) "that the struggle in one country cannot end the ^ of our Central Committee of th time: refers clearly and quite correctly in several places adopted ( the drat prog

without a decisive victory ot one or the other side .... . . . .

it did not give rise to any objections

in SEVERAL civilised countries.
'At that time this was even "self-evident." gress and, I think, it fully holds good today. So
Further: f ar as Bucharin is concerned, he declined to deal

"In the Marxian and quasi-Marxian pre-war lit- with the political side of the problem since "many
eraturc, the question was many times raised as to comrades, including Lenin and Trotsky, had al
whether the victory of Socialism is possible in one ready spoken on the subject"; in other words,
country. Most of the writers replied to this question Bucharin agreed with my speech. Here is what
in the negative (And what about Lenin in 1915?-— T • i .. .» ri _i rr i . r\.. r>

L. T) "from which one does not at all conclude l sald at the Fourth Congress about Otto Bauer:
that it is impossible or inadmissible to start the rev- "The Social Democratic theoreticians, who, on the

one hand recognise in their holiday articles that cap-
italism, particularly in Europe, has outlived its use-
fulness and has become a. brake on historical devel-
opment, and who on the other hand express the.
conviction that the evolution of Soviet Russia dev-

olution and to capture power in one country.
Exactly! In the same article we read:

"The period of great development of the pro
ductivc forces can begin only with, the victory of the
proletariat in several large countries. . From here
it follows that an all-round development of the
world revolution and the formation of a strong econ
omic alliance of the industrial countries with Soviet
Russia is necessary." (N. Bucharin, "Proletarian
Dictatorship in Russia and the World Revolution,"
The Communist International, No. ">, 1919).

Buchann's statement that a rise in the productive
forces, that is, real Socialist development, will be-
gin only after the victory of the proleariat of the
advanced countries of Europe-^why, that is exactly
the phrase which was used as a basis of all acts
of indictment against "Trotskyism," including
also the indictment read at the Seventh Plenum
of the E.C.C.I, It is only strange that Bucharin,
Jwhose only salvation lies in his. short memory,
read the indictment. Side by side with this com-
ical circumstance, there" is also a tragic one —
among those indicted was also Lenin, who ex-
pressed, tens of times, the very same elementary
idea.-

Fuially, in 1921, six years after Lenin's alleged
jclmnge of 191?, and four years after the October
Revolution, the program of the Young Communist
League, approved by the Central Committee head-
jed by Lenin and drawn up b'y a Commission under
.Bucharin's leadership, says in paragraph 4:

"la the U.S.S.R. political power is already in the
hands of the working class. In the course of three
years of heroic struggle against world capitalism it
maintained and strengthened its Soviet Govern-
ment, Russia, although it possesses enormous nat-
ural resources, is, nevertheless, from an, industrial
; point of view, a backward country, in which a petty-
bourgeois population predominates. It can arrive
a* Socialism only through the world proletarian

epoch of development we have ,
L r b

. f ,., n '' to the law of uneven development which, accord- drafted, ty comrades Bu

the ^' ing to Stalin, Marx and Engels did not know. On £j£J*£Z*^

the basis of that law Vollmar arrives in 1878 at t j re validity of this tin

the irrefutable conclusion that: and fundamental ^riticisir

'"Under the existing conditions, which will retain mains in spite of the

their forces also in the future, it can be foreseen that it was kept from

that a simultaneous victory of socialism in all cultural Congress and- nev«r discu.

countries, is absolutely out of the question." by the delegates. The

~. " i . \_, ■ . , ..„ j- ,i -.T n • attention accorded it was

Developing this idea still -further, Vollmar says-, distribution to members

"Thus we have come to the ISOLATED socialist the Program %mmis

State which is, I hope I have proven, although not an d a report on the di

the only possible, the MOST PROBABLE WAY. - ' mer* to the "Serioren-K

Inasmuch as by the term of isolated State one y cnt ". ? f , e .? on Ff" S T l

must understand one State under a proletarian ^^£l iSi^aiL '

itably leads to the triumph of bourgeois democracy, dictatorship, Vollmar expressed an irrefutable idea

fall into the most pitiful and flat contradiction of which was well-known to Marx and Engels and j.f"",?,

which these stupid and conceited confusionists are w Ufrh r en ;.. p Xr>re cc Pr l ; n the minted irHrle of c X. 1

«/ni+hv thp mfu/ PPHMnvfTP POT tpv rs um( - n t.enin expiesseu in tne quotca article ot forthwith

rigid cor I on
aent was ,-stablis^

worthy. THE "NEW ECONOMIC POLICY IS TniT* """" " V1 ' lv ^" *" """ **"""•■" "'"^ ul lortnwith and the

CALCULATED ON CERTAIN DEFINITE CON- 1915 - copies of the doEUiietit wi=

DITIONS OF TIME AND SPACE, IT IS A But then comes already something which is werc distributed were

MANOECVER OF THE WORKERS' STATE purely Vollmar's idea wheh, by the way, is by called, b yt he Secretariat £

WHICH EXISTS IN CAPITALIST SURROUND- f ar not a<; one-sided ind wronalv fr.rmnlat>rl a, publication is an authe:

INGS AND DEFINITELY CALCULATES ON f, r as one sided and wrongly formulated as copy which we have just

THE REVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT OF the fora^ation of our sponsors of the theory ot ceived. It deals chiefly vi

EUROPE... Such a factor as time cannot be left socialism in one ■ country. In his construction, the role of American :

out of consideration in political calculations. If we Vollmar took as a starting point the supposition pe«alism and the prospect

admit that capitalism will really bej_ able to exist that socialist Germany will have live economic rela- fu^ "^„Sh "'*"**""'

i.i Europe for another hundred or fifty years an3 Hnnfi wl> u wnrlf | ra :L ; « „ rnnntl „ r u a ,„- n „ at t u, 5. e , ! "^ ?^ ™

that Soviet Russia will have to adapt itself to it in

tions with world caitalist economy, having at the ciali

sm in one ce

its econonric policy, then the question solves itself same tlme the advantage of possessing a highly- the. Chinese rev

automatically because, by recognizing this, we pre- developed technique and a low cost of production. Its lessons, and I \

suppose the crushing of the proletarian revolution This construction is based on the prospect of a matlon of . wor ^ e

"vS^O^wt "&. / a iTi:rL1r ^1* PEACEFUL co-habitation of Ae socialist and cap- BLfSklS

in principle. Tr
ment on the "'
Alliance" with
the fight against «vhich v
led by him, will >e especij

situatic

ry of "

itry," w

ution E

i the 1

and p<

Trots

;onden

ky's cc

lird Pa

l Follei

covered in the life of present-day Austria any ital j 8t s y stems - But inasmuch as socialism must, as
miraculous signs of capitalist revival then all that a s it progresses, constantly reveal its colossal pro-
can be said is that the fate of Russia is pre-deter? ductive advantages the necessity for a world rev-
mined. But so far we do not see any miracles, and l ution wi U f a Jl away in itse lf as socialism will be Jea nv „._ _..
we do not believe m such, From our viewpoint, it „ui ..., ^.i <. vi -. i- i 1 i lea D ? mm ' wlu
the European bourgeoisie will hold power in ihe able to settle accounts with capitalism by the sale interesting ta African cc
course of several decades, it will under the present ot g°°ds more cheaply on the market. munists. The mtire do
world conditions signify not a new capitalist bloom, The authors of the first draft program and ment Wli } be prated in i
but economic stagnation and the cultural decline oT one of the authors of the second draft,- Bucharin c° n f ecuti y el y | n <*>is and I
Europe, That such a process might be abla to j n t h e i r construction of socialism in one rmmfrv K com ?i ""^ 1
draw Soviet Russia into the abyss can, generally I construction or socialism in one country, Militant without xny chang
speaking, not be denied. Whether she would have P roc . e( ? d entirely irom the idea ot an isolated self- Its basic importance for I
to go through a state democracy, or adopt some sufficing economy. In Bucharin's article entitled international revolution!
other forms, is a question of secondary importance. " v As to the Nature of our Revolution and the n > ovement an( * ■&* -iin'answ

TCLT< n °,iTZ wha ^«' f? r . *^ adopUo.. Possibility of Successful Socialist Construction in So'-~ffi Z" ?1 £&

oi bpenglers philosophy. We definitely look for- +1* 1 r o c " /tl d i l •< \i , ^-, ,„,,v tioa on tne Durr ig.proble

ward to a revolutionary development in Europe ««. U.S.S.R. (The Bolshevik, No. 192, 1926), of the Comnu st Interr

THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY IS MERELY which is the last word in scholastics multiplied by tional make is mvalual

AN ADAPTATION TO THE RATE OF THAT sophistry, all arguments pre kept within the limits con t"bution to t MoUheN

DEVELOPMENT." (L Trotsky. Five Years of of isolated economy. The chief and only argument literature of °^ Period

the Comintern, Social Democratic Criticism). ^ fa„ following- —

... . - . , , , This formulation of the questions brings us

oow entTr'ed^ ^ development .we have ^ tQ ^ ^.^ frQm which we sUrtcd iia deal

This paragraph of the program of the Young *"g ™& the draft program, namely, that in

Cofamunist League— not of an accidental article, the epoch of imperialism one cannot regard the

but of a program— renders the attempts of the ^ ? f °, ne country in any other way but by taking

authors of the draft to prove that the Party '"al- as a background the tendencies of world develop

jwayn" held the construction of a Socialist society inCnt - in whlch the individual country with all its

jpooftibte in. one country and precisely in Russia, national peculiarities is included and to which It

ridiculous and inadequate. If "always." why is it JS subordinated, as a whole. Theoreticians of the

fchafc Bucharin wrote such a paragraph in the pro- Second International exclude the U.S.S.R. from

gram, of the Young Communist League and why the world unit and from the imperialist epoch:

Svas Stalin looking on? How could Lenin and the thc r a PP'Y to the U.S.S.R., as an isolated country, wc have all that is necessary and sufficient," SO. .

Xvhole Central Committee voice such a heresy? tlie va g ue criterion of economic "maturity"; they we have it. Starting out from a point which needs

Hov/ was it that no one in the Party noticed this declare that the U.S.S.R; is not ready for inde- to be proven, Bucharin builds up a complete sys-

"triffeV or raised a voice against it? Does this not pendent social construction, and draw the conch- * &w?c ron Vollmar , son of an arislocratl> w . ia ^

loofc like a viciOUS joke which is a direct mockery S10n of « le inevitability of a Capitalist degeneration me of the leaders of the German Social Dsnocrajr -in the days 'of

r «l r. u •-. 1-- \. J .L r> • .. •> T v nf the Workers' State l and . e!der ; Lle , b k- nc d>t- He opposed the Marxian contention*

Of thC Party, ltS history and the Comintern? IS It or tne W OIKers OCdCt, ,„ , he t, uesll00s ot the- concentration of capiul, on the agrarian

not high time to put a stop to this? Is it not high The authors of the draft program adopt the ^^^fl^JV^'llt £^ rf A™ u '*S

time to tell the revisionists: Dare not hide behind same theoretical ground and accept the metaphys- >'.'!« Bummk ami-Sociaiiat law, he served a um in the Zwickau

Lenin and the theoretical traditions of Marxism? ical methodology of the Social Democratic theoret- TsJ.t*!^la. e wrow % ™ k °" the au ' stioa of in isohted SocU1 '

Once we have 'all that is necessary and sufficient'
for the building up of socialism, it follows that in
the process of building of socialism there can be ^ »-•»
no such a point at which its further construction ^VC^SSCS^Sf *£t%j
would become impossible. If we have in our coun- """ " " **V«I*'

try such a combination of forces that in relation to
each past year, we are marching ahead with a greater
relative strength of the socialist sector of economy
and the socialised sectors of economy grow faster
than the private capitalist sectors, then we are enter-
ing every subsequent new year with a greater balance
of power."
This argumentation is comprehensible "ONCE

MILITANT

December IT, 1926.

December I y, 1928.

THE MIL IT A.

3GRAM OF THE COMINTERN

A CRITICISM OF
FUNDAMENTALS

By

E "SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
iVIATION"

d is more than sufficient to
in's theoretical position of
. To characterise his political
recall that having selected in
ten by the Opposition those
r analogous with those which
IIS CASE in full agreement
up to 192?, Bucharin erected
;ory of our "Social Democratic
ars that in the central question
ons between the October Rev
rnational revolution, the oppo-
same as Otto Bauer, who does
bility of Socialist construction
ould think that printing has
y in 1924 and that everything
:e that has been forgotten. It
ort memory,

question of the nature of the
, the Comintern settled its ac-
Jauer and other philistines of
:ional at the Fourth Congress,
he question of the New Econ'
: prospcts of world revolution)
entral Committee, Otto Bauer's
d in a manner which expressed
entral Committee of the time;
to any objections at the Con-
it fully holds good today. So
pcmcerned, he declined to deal
e of the problem since "many
Lenin and Trotsky, had al
e subject''; in other words,
ith my speech. Here is what
Congress about Otto Bauer:

mocrutic theoreticians, who, on the

e in their holiday articles that cap-

ly in Europe, has outlived its use-

fecome a. brake on historical devel-

i> on the other hand express the

ie evolution of Soviet Russia inev

t triumph of bourgeois democracy,

St pitiful and fiat contradiction of

id and conceited confusionists are

STEW ECONOMIC POLICY IS

3N CERTAIN DEFINITE CON-

'IME AND SPACE. IT IS A

OF THE WORKERS' STATE

i IN CAPITALIST SURROUND-

^FINITELY CALCULATES ON

riONARY DEVELOPMENT OF

jch a factor as time cannot be left

ion in political calculations. If we

ilism will really be) able to exist

mother hundred or fifty years anil

a will have to adapt itself to it in

cy, then the question solves itself

ause, by recognizing this, we pre-

hing of the proletarian revolution

e rise of a new epoch of capitalist

at basis? If Otto Bauer has dis-

life of present-day Austria any

of capitalist revival then all that

lat the fate of Russia is prc-deter-

xv we do not see any miracles, and

e in such. From our viewpoint, if

)urgeoisie will hold power in the

decades, it will under the present

signify not a new capitalist bloom,

gnation and the cultural decline oT

such a process might be ablei to

ssia into the abyss can, generally

denied. Whether she would have

i state democracy, or adopt some

question of secondary importance.

reason whatever, for the adoption.

ilosophy. Wc definitely look for-

lutionary development in Europe.

ONOMIC POLICY IS MERELY

[ON TO THE RATE OF THAT

TV' (L. Trotsky. Five Years of

social Democratic Criticism).

a of the questions brings us
r rom which we started in deal
ft program, namely, that in
rialism one cannot regard the
in any other way but by taking
.e tendencies of world develop
: individual country with all its
»s is included and to which it
a whole. Theoreticians of the
tal exclude the U.S.S.R. from
d from the imperialist epoch:
J.S.S.R.. as an isolated country,
. of economic "maturity"; they
F.S.S.R." is not ready for inde-
struction^ and draw the conclu-
lility of a capitalist degeneration
tate.

the draft program adopt the
ound and accept the metaphys-
f the Social Democratic theoret-

icians as a whole. They too "abstract" from the
world entity and from the imperialist epoch. They
start out from the fiction of isolated development.
They apply to the national phase of the world
revolution a vague economic criterion. But their
"sentence" is different. The "leftism" of the
authors of the draft lies in the fact that they turn
the Social Democratic evaluation inside out. How-
ever, the position of the theoreticians of the
Second International, no matter how much one

would remodel it, is equally bad. One must take it - )kM . ikMt . -^ ^
Lenin's position which simply REMOVES Bauer's 4&v£33C^3C&3lv
position and Bauer's prognosis as the exercises of
an elementary class.

That is how matters stand with the "Social
Democratic deviation." Not we but the authors
of the draft should consider themselves related to
Bauer,

FOREWORD

6. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE US.S.R.
ON WORLD ECONOMY •

The precursor of the present prophets of the
national socialist society was no other than Herr
Vollmar.* Describing in his article entitled "An
Isolated Socialist State" the prospect of indepen-
dent socialist construction in Germany, the pro-
letariat of which country advanced much further
than that of progressive Britain, Vollmar, in 1878,
refers clearly and quite correctly in several places
to the law of uneven development which, accord-
ing to Stalin, Marx and Engels did not know, On
the basis of that law Vollmar arrives in 1878 at
the irrefutable conclusion that:

"Under the existing conditions, which will retain
their forces also in the future, it can be foreseen
that a simultaneous victory of socialism in all cultural
countries, is absolutely out of the question."

Developing this idea still further, Vollmar says:

"Thus we have come to the ISOLATED socialist

State which is, I hope I have proven, although not

the only possible, the MOST PROBABLE WAY."

Inasmuch as by the term of isolated State one

must understand one State under a proletarian

dictatorship, Vollmar expressed an irrefutable idea

which was well-known to Marx and Engels and

which Lenin expressed in the quoted article of

1915.

But then comes already something which is
purely Vollmar's idea wheh, by the way, is by
far not as one-sided and wrongly formulated as
the formultation of our sponsors of the theory of
socialism in one country. In his construction,
Vollmar took as a starting point the supposition
that socialist Germany will have live economic rela-
tions with world caitalist economy, having at the
same time the advantage of possessing a highly-
developed technique and a low cost of production.
This construction is based on the prospect of a
PEACEFUL co-habitation of the socialist and cap-
italist systems. But inasmuch as socialism must, as
as it progresses, constantly reveal its colossal pro-
ductive advantages the necessity for a world rev-
olution will fall away in itself, as socialism will be
able to settle accounts with capitalism by the sale
of goods more cheaply on the market.

The authors of the first draft program and
one of the authors of the second draft,- Bucharin,
in their construction of socialism in one country,
proceed entirely from the idea of an isolated self-
sufficing economy. In Bucharin's article entitled
"As to the Nature of our Revolution and the
Possibility of Successful Socialist Construction in
the U.S.S.R." (The Bolshevik, No. 192, 1926),
which is the last word in scholastics multiplied by
sophistry, all arguments are kept within the limits
of isolated economy. The chief and only argument
is the following:

"Once we have 'all that is necessary and sufficient*
for the building up of socialism, it follows that in
the process of building of socialism there can be
no such a point at which its further construction
would become impossible. If we have in our coun-
try such a combination of forces that in relation to
each past year, we are marching ahead with a greater
relative strength of the socialist sector of economy
and the socialised sectors of economy grow faster
than the private capitalist sectors, then we are enter-
ing every subsequent new year with a greater balance
of power."
This argumentation is comprehensible "ONCE
we have all that is necessary and sufficient," SO. . .
we have it. Starting out from a point which needs
to be proven, Bucharin builds up a complete sys-

* G^otkc von Vollnur, son of an aristocratic Bavarian family, was
>ne of the leaders of the German Social Democracy in 'the- days *of
Bebel and the elder Liebknccht. He opposed the Marxian contention!
>n the t]Uestion3 of the concentration of capital, on the agrarian
jroblem, and the like. He was one of the fathers of the "evolu- >a-
uy" reformist movement in the German Party. During- the days
if the Bismarck ami-Socialist law, he served a term In the Zwickau
>rison, where he wrote a work on the question of an isolated Social-
ist Stat*.— Ed.

With this issue The Mili-
tant prints the third in-
stallment of "the Draft
Program of the Commu-
nist Internatioa: A Cri-
ticism of Fundamentals"
by L. D. Trotsky. This
document, a masterpiece of
Marxist-Leninist literature was
submitted by comrade Trot-
sky to the Sixth World Con-
gress of the Conjmunist In-
ternational whi«h finally
adopted the dra c program
drafted by comrades Bucha-
rin and Stalin, wttthout any
important change . The en-
tire validity of this timely
and fundamental criticism re-
mains in spite of the fact
that it was kept from the
Congress and never discussed
by the delegates. The sole
attention accorded it was its
distribution to members of
the Program tlommission
and a report on the docu-
ment to the "Sefiioren-Kon-
vent" of the Congress which
immediately "settled^ the is-
sue without discussion.

A rigid cor 1 on this
document was established
forthwith and the few
copies of the docuiient which
were distributed were re-
called by the Secretariat. Our
publication is sui authentic
copy which we have just re-
ceived. It deals jhiefly with
the role of American Im-
perialism and the prospect of
new involutional situations,
the revisionist thi ry of "So-
cialism in one cc itry," with
the Chinese rev ution and
its lessons, and <. i the for-
mation of worke ind peas-
ants parties wh: Trotsky,
in line with Leni condemns
in principle. Tr ky's com-
ment on the " ; tird Party
Alliance" with i Toilette,
the fight against which was
led by him, will »e especially
interesting to American com-
munists. The entire docu-
ment will be prated in full
consecutively in this and the
forthcoming issues of The
Militant without ifty changes.
Its basic importance for the
international rjvolutionary
movement and tit unanswer-
able correctness of its posi-
tion on the burr ig problems
of the Comnu st Interna-
tional make is invaluable
contribution to t 'tiolshevik
literature of ou<\ period.

— Editor.

vmm %&?

tern of self-sufficing socialist economics without
any entrances or exits to it. As to the external
environment, that is, the rest of the world, Bucha-
rin as well as Stalin, think of them only from the
viewpoint of intervention; When Bucharin speaks
in his article about the necessity to "abstract"
from the international factor, he has in mind not
the world market but military intervention.
Bucharin does not have to abstract from the world
market because he simply forgets about it in his
structure. In harmony with this scheme Bucharin
championed at the Fourteenth Congress the idea
that if we will not be interfered with by interven-
tion we will build up socialism "although with the
speed of a tortoise." The uninterrupted struggle
between the two systems, the fact that socialism
can be based only on the highest productive forces,
in a word, Marxian dynamics in displacing one
social form by another on the basis of the growing
productive forces — -all this has been blotted out.
Revolutionary historical dialectics has been dis-
placed by a skinflint reactionary Utopia of encir-
cled socialism, built on a low technique developing
with the "speed of a tortoise" within national
boundaries, connected with the external world
only by its fear of intervention. The refusal to
accept this miserable caricature on Marx's and
Lenin's doctrine has been declared a "Social Dem-
ocratic deviation." In the quoted article, this
characterisation of our views, has, in general, for
the first time been advanced and "substantiated."
History will mark that we have fallen into a
"Social Democratic deviation" for failing to recog-
nise as inferior version of Vollmar s theory of
socialism in one country. The proletariat of Czar-
ist Russia could not have taken power in October
if Russia had not been a link, the weakest, but
yet a link, of the chain of WORLD economy.
The capture of power by the proletariat has not
in the least excluded the Soviet Republic from the
international "division of labor" set up by cap-
italism.

Like the wise owl which comes out only in the
dusk, the theory of socialism in one country has
appeared at the moment when our industry, which
exhausts ever greater parts of the old fixed capital,
two-thirds of which is a crystallization of the de-
pendence of our industry on world, economics, has
manifested an acute demand for a renewing and
extension of relations with the world market and
when the questions of foreign trade have arisen in
their full scope before our economic directors.

At the Eleventh Congress, that is, at the last
Congress at which Lenin had the opportunity to
speak to the Party, he issued the warning that the
Party will have to face another examination:

"An examination which the Russian and INTER'
NATIONAL MARKET TO WHICH WE ARE
SUBORDINATED, WITH WHICH WE ARE
CONNECTED AND FROM WHICH WE CAN-
NOT ESCAPE, WILL MAKE US GO
THROUGH."

Nothing strikes; the theory of an isolated "com-
plete" socialism such a death blow as the simple
fact that the figures of our foreign trade have in
recent years become the corner stone of the fig-
ures of our economic plans. The most "stringent
place" of our economy, including our industry, is
our import which depends entirely on the export.
And inasmuch as the power of resistance is al-
ways measured by the weakest link,- the extent of
our economic plans is measured by the extent of
our import.

In the journal Planned Economy (a theoretical
organ of the State Planning Commission) we read
in an article devoted to the system of planning,
that

"in drawing up our estimates for this year we. had
to take our export and import balance as a starting
point; we had to orientate ourselves on that in our
plans for the various industries and: consequently for
industry in general and particularly for the Con;
struction of new industrial enterprises, etc, etc." —
(January 1927, page 27).

The methodological approach of the State Plan-
ning Commission says without any doubt, for all
who have ears to hear, that the estimate figures
determine the tendency and tempo of our econ-
omic development but that these estimate figures
are already controlled by world economy; not be-
cause we have become weaker, but because having
becoming stronger we have outgrown the narrow
enclosed circle.

The capitalist world shows us by its export and
import figures that it has other means of persua-
sion than those of military intervention. Inasmuch
as productivity of labor, and the productivity of
a social system as a whole is measured on the

market by the correlation of pj
extent it is not so much militai
the intervention of cheaper cap]
that constitute the greatest dang
omy. This alone shows that ii
merely a question of an isolated
over one's "own" bourgeoisie:

"The Socialist revolution whi

whole world will by no means

victory of the proletariat of ea

own bourgeoisie." (Lenin, 1919,

It is a question of competition

death struggle between two soci

which only commenced to build

ductive forces and the other wl

productive forces of immeasurably

Anyone who sees in the adm

pendence on the world market (L

ly of our SUBORDINATION t

ket) "pessimism," reveals thereb)

cial petty-bourgeois feebleness ir

world market and the pititful

country-bred optimism, hoping to

economy behind a bush and to g«

with his own means.

The question of honor for the
become the curious idea that t
perish from a military interven
means form its own economic ba
inasmuch as in socialist society
the toiling masses to defend their
much greater than the readiness
capitalism to attack that country
why should a military interver
with destruction? Is it becaus
TECHNICALLY immeasurably
arm admits the preponderance c
forces only in the military techi
does not want to understand that
just as dangerous as the Creusot g
difference that whereas the gun c
time to time, the tractor brings its
constantly. Besides, the tractor 1
stands behind it, as a last resort.
We are the first Workers' Sta^
world proletariat together with
PEND upon world capital. The
tral and bureaucratically castratec
tion" is set in motion only with t
cealing the extremely difficult
nature of these "connections." J
duce according to the price of tl
our dependence on the latter, w
be a dependence, would be of a
character than it is now. But u
is not so. The very monopoly
betrays the severity and the dang<
our dependence. The decisive ii
monopoly in our socialist constn
precisely of the existing correlatio
is unfavorable to us. But one mi
a moment that the foreign trade c
dependence upon the world marl
eliminate it.

"So long as our Soviet Rep

"will remain the only border lane

whole capitalist world, so long wil

ridiculous fantasy and Utopia to

plete economic independence an'

ance of any of our dangers." — C

The chief dangers arise consei

objective position of the U.S.S.

borderland" in capitalist econom)

to us. These dangers may, how

increase. This depends on th«

factors — -socialist construction or

and the development of capitalist

other. The second factor of co

fate of world economy as a wh

FINAL ANALYSIS, of DECIS.

Can it happen — and in what

that the productivity of our soc

constantly lag behind that of the

—which, IN THE END would ]

the downfall of the Socialist Rep'

manage properly our economy in

it becomes necessary to create :

industrial basis with its incompa

mands to the management, then

of labor will grow. Is it, howe-s

that the productivity of labor

countries, or, more correctly, in

capitalist countries, will grow h

country? Without a clear answe

the meaningless and wordy stai

tempo "is in itself" sufficient (

factitious philosophy about the .."

toise") are insolvent. But the ve

December I?, 1928.

THE MILITANT

Page 1

OMINTERN

A CRITICISM OF
FUNDAMENTALS

By L. D. TROTSKY

433C833Cmfc33U

FOREWORD

With this issue The Mili-
tant prints the third in'
stallment of "the Draft
Program of the Commu-
nist Internation: A Cri-
ticism of Fundamentals"
by L. D. Trotsky. This
document, a masterpiece of
Marxist-Leninist literature was
submitted by comrade Trot-
sky to the Sixth World Con-
gress of the Cofl|munist In-
ternational whkh finally
adopted the drat program
drafted by comrades Bucha-
rin and Stalin, wathout any
important change . The en-
tire validity of this timely
and fundamental criticism re-
mains in spite of the fact
that it was kept from the
Congress and nevgr discussed
by the delegates. The sole
attention accorded it was its
distribution to members of
the Program tlommission
and a report on the docu-
ment to the "Sefcioren-Kon-
vent" of the Congress which
immediately "settkd" the is-
sue without discussion.

A rigid cor 1 on this
document was established
forthwith and the few
copies of the dacu-aeat which
were distributed were re-
called by the Secretariat. Our
publication is an authentic
copy which we have just re-
ceived. It deals chiefly with
the role of American Im-
perialism and the prospect of
new involutional situations,
the revisionist th< ry of "So-
cialism in one cc itry," with
the Chinese re'v ution and
its lessons, and '. i the for-
mation of worke and peas-
ants parties wh: Trotsky,
in line with Leni condemns
in principle. Tr ky's com-
ment on the "' urd Party
Alliance" with \ Follette,
the fight against which was
led by him, will >e especially
interesting to American com-
munists. The entire docu-
ment will be prated in full
consecutively in this and the
forthcoming iss«8 of The
Militant without my changes.
Its basic importince for the
international revolutionary
movement and tit unanswer-
able correctness of its posi-
tion on the burr ig problems
of the Commi st Interna-
tional make is invaluable
contribution to t 'tiolshevik
literature of- ou\ period.

— Editor.

^C£3KS33C U£Sr

tern of self-sufficing socialist economics without
any entrances or exits to it, As to the external
environment, that is, the rest of. the world, Bucha-
rin as well as Stalin, think of them only from the
viewpoint of intervention^ When Bucharin speaks
in his article about the necessity to "abstract"
from the international factor, he has in mind not
the world market but military intervention.
Bucharin does not have to abstract from the world
market because he simply forgets about it in his
structure. In harmony with this scheme Bucharin
championed at the Fourteenth Congress the idea
that if we will not be interfered with by interven-
tion we will build up socialism "although with the
speed of a tortoise." The uninterrupted struggle
between the two systems, the fact that socialism
can be based only on the highest productive forces,
in a word, Marxian dynamics in displacing one
social form by another on the basis of the growing
productive forces — all this has been blotted Out.
Revolutionary historical dialectics has been dis-
placed by a skinflint reactionary Utopia of encir-
cled socialism, built on a low technique developing
with the "speed of a tortoise" within national
boundaries, connected with the external world
only by its fear of intervention. The refusal to
accept this miserable caricature on Marx's and
Lenin's doctrine has been declared a "Social Dem-
ocratic deviation." In the quoted article, this
characterization of our views, has, in general, for
the first time been advanced and "substantiated."
History will mark that we have fallen into a
"Social Democratic deviation" for failing to recog-
nise as inferior version of Vollmars theory of
socialism in one country, The proletariat of Czar-
ist Russia could not have taken power in October
if Russia had not been a link, the weakest, but
yet a link, of the chain of WORLD economy.
The capture of power by the proletariat has not
in the least excluded the Soviet Republic from the
international "division of labor" set up by cap-
italism.

Like the wise owl which comes out only in the
dusk, the theory of socialism in one country has
appeared at the moment when our industry, which
exhausts ever greater parts of the old fixed capital,
two- thirds of which is a crystallization of the de-
pendence of our industry on world, economics, has
manifested an acute demand for a renewing and
extension of relations with the world market and
when the questions of foreign trade have arisen in
their full scope before our economic directors.

At the Eleventh Congress, that is, at the last
Congress at which Lenin had the opportunity to
speak to the Party, he issued the warning that the
Party will have to face another examination:

"An examination which the Russian and INTER-
NATIONAL MARKET TO WHICH WE ARE
SUBORDINATED, WITH WHICH WE ARE
CONNECTED AND FROM WHICH WE CAN-
NOT ESCAPE, WILL MAKE US GO
THROUGH."

Nothing strikes; the theory of an isolated "com-
plete" socialism such a death blow as the simple
fact that the figures of our foreign trade have in
recent years become the corner stone of the fig-
ures of our economic plans. The most "stringent
place" of our economy, including our industry, is
our import which depends entirely on the export.
And inasmuch as the power of resistance is al-
ways measured by the weakest link,- the extent of
our economic plans is measured by the extent of
our import.

In the journal Planned Economy (a theoretical
organ of the State Planning Commission) we read
in an article devoted to the system of planning,
that

"in drawing up our estimates for this year we had
to take our export and import balance as a starting
point; we had to orientate ourselves on that in our
plans for the various industries and. consequently for
industry in general and particularly for the Con-
struction of new industrial enterprises,' etc., etc."—
(January 1927, page 27).

The methodological approach of the State Plan-
ning Commission says without any doubt, for all
who have ears to hear, that the estimate figures
determine the tendency and tempo of our econ-
omic development but that these estimate figures
are already controlled by world economy; not be-
cause we have become weaker, but because having
becoming stronger we have outgrown the narrow
enclosed circle.

The capitalist world shows us by its export and
import figures that it hai other, means of persua-
sion than those of military intervention. Inasmuch
as productivity of labor and the productivity of
a social system as & whole is measured on the

market by the correlation of prices, to the same
extent it is not so much military intervention as
the intervention of cheaper capitalist commodities
that constitute the greatest danger to Soviet econ-
omy. This alone shows that it is by no means
merely a question of an isolated economic victory
over one's "own" bourgeoisie:

"The Socialist revolution which is meant for the
whole world will by no means consist merely in a
victory of the proletariat of each country over its
own bourgeoisie." (Lenin, 1919, Vol. 16, page 388);
It is a question of competition and of a life and
death struggle between two social systems one of
which only commenced to build on backward pro-
ductive forces and the other which still rests on
productive forces of immeasurably greater strength;
Anyone who sees in the admission of our de-
pendence on the world market (Lenin spoke direct-
ly Of our SUBORDINATION to the world mar-
ket) "pessimism," reveals thereby his own provin-
cial petty-bourgeois feebleness in the face of the
world market and the pititful character of his
country-bred optimism, hoping to hide from world
economy behind a bush and to get along somehow
with his own means.

The question of honor for the new theory has
become the curious idea that the U.S.S.R. can
perish from a military intervention, but by no
means form its own economic backwardness. But
inasmuch as in socialist society the readiness of
the toiling masses to defend their country must be
much greater than the readiness of the slaves of
capitalism to attack that country, the question is.
why should a military intervention menace us
with destruction? Is it because the enemy is
TECHNICALLY immeasurably stronger? Buch'
arin admits the preponderance of the productive
forces only in the military technical aspect. He
does not want to understand that Ford's tractor is
just as dangerous as the Creusot gun, with the only
difference that whereas the gun can act only from
time to time, the tractor brings its pressure to bear
constantly. Besides, the tractor knows that a gun
stands behind it, as a last resort.

We are the first Workers' State— a part of the
world proletariat together with which we DE-
PEND -upon world capital. The indifferent, neu-
tral and bureaucratically castrated word, "connec-
tion" is set in motion only with the object of con-
cealing the extremely difficult and dangerous
nature of these "connections." If we would pro-
duce according to the price of the world market,
our dependence on the latter, without ceasing to
be a dependence, would be of a much less severe
character than it is now. But unfortunately this
is not so. The very monopoly of foreign trade
betrays the severity and the dangerous character of
our dependence. The decisive importance of the
monopojy in our socialist construction is a result
precisely of the existing correlation of forces which
is unfavorable to us. But one must not forget for
a moment that the foreign trade only regulates our
dependence upon the world market, but does not
eliminate it.

"So long as ouu Soviet Republic," says Lenin,
"will remain the only border land surrounded by the
whole capitalist world, so long will it be an absolutely
ridiculous fantasy and Utopia to think of our com-
plete economic independence and of the disappear-
ance of any of our dangers."— (Vol. 17, page 409).
The chief dangers arise consequently from the
objective position of the U.S.S.R. as the "only
borderland" in capitalist economy which is hostile
to us. These dangers may, however, diminish or
increase. This depends on the action of two
factors — socialist construction on the one hand,
and the development of capitalist economy on the
other. The second factor of course, that is, the
fate of world economy as a whole, is, IN THE
FINAL ANALYSIS, of DECISIVE significance.
Can it happen — and in what particular case —
that the productivity of our socialist system will
constantly lag behind that of the capitalist system
—which, IN THE END would inevitably lead to
the downfall of the Socialist Republic? If we will
manage properly our economy in the phase when
it becomes necessary to create independently an
industrial basis with its incomparably higher de-
mands to the management, then our productivity
of labor will grow. Is it, however, inconceivable
that the productivity of labor in the capitalist
countries, or, more correctly, in the predominant
capitalist countries, will grow faster than in our
country? Without a clear answer to this question
the meaningless and wordy statements that bur
tempo -'is in itself" sufficient (let us forget the
factitious philosophy about the "speed of the tor-
toise") are insolvent. But the very mentioning of

' the rivalry of two systems leads us to the arena
of world economy and world politics, that is, to
the arena of action and decision of the revolution-
ary International which includes also the Soviet
Republic, but not by any means the self-sufficing
Soviet Republic, which secures from time to time
the support of the International. Before, however,
taking up this question we will try to reveal its
main contradiction, basing ourselves on the draft
program. .

7. THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN THE
PRODUCTIVE FORCES AND THE NA-
TIONAL BOUNDARIES AS THE CAUSE
OF THE REACTIONARY UTOPIAN
THEORY OF SOCIALISM IN ONE
COUNTRY.

The theory of socialism in one country is con-
firmed as we have seen by means of several sophist
interpretations of Lenin's expressions on the one
hand and by a scholastic interpretation of the "law
of uneven development" on the other. By giving
a correct interpretation of the historical law as
well as of the respective quotations we arrived at
a directly opposite conclusion, that is, a conclusion
at which Marx, Engels, Lenin and all of us in-
cluding Stalin and Bucharin up to 1925, have ar-
rived at.

From the uneven sporadic devolpment of cap-
italism follow the unsimultaneous, uneven and spo-
radic nature of the socialist revolution; from the
extreme tensity of the inter-dependence of the
various countries upon each other, follows not only
the political but also the economic impossibility of
the building up of socialism in one country.

From this, angle we will examine once again
the text of the program a little closer. We have
already read in the introduction that:

"Imperialism . . . intensifies the contradiction be-
tween the growth of the productive forces of world
economy and national State barriers to an excep-
tional degree."

We have already stated that this utterance was
meant to be the corner-stone of the international
program. But it is precisely this enunciation
which excludes, rejects and sweeps away before-
hand the theory of socialism in one country as a
reactionary theory because it is irreconciliably op-
posed not only to the main TENDENCY of de-
velopment of the productive forces but also to the
MATERIAL RESULTS which have already been
attained. The productive forces are incompatible
with national boundaries. From here follow not
only foreign trade, the export of people and cap-
ital, the conquest of land, the colonial policy, and
the last imperialist war, but also the economic im-
possibility of a self-sufficing socialist society. The
productive forces of CAPITALIST countries have
already for a long time broken through the na-
tional boundaries. Socialist society however, can
be built only on the most advanced productive
forces, on electricity and chemistry in tike proces-
ses of production including also agriculture, in the
combination, generalization and culmination of the
highest elements of modern technique. We have
been repeating since Marx that capitalism is un-
able to cope with the spirit of new technique to
which it has given rise and which breaks asunder
not only the private property rights of bourgeois
property but, as the war of 1914 has shown, also
the national limits of the bourgeois State. So-
cialism, however, must not only take over from
capitalism the most highly developed productive
forces but must immediatey carry them onwarcT,
raise them to a higher level and lend them such
a state of development which has been unknown
under capitalism. The question arises, how can
socialism drive the productive forces back into the
boundaries of a national state which they have
broken through under capitalism? Or perhaps we
ought to abandon the idea of "unbridled" produc-
tive forces for which the national boundaries AND
CONSEQUENTLY ALSO THE BOUNDARIES
OF THE THEORY OF SOCIALISM IN ONE
COUNTRY are too narrow, and limit ourselves
to, let us say, the home productive forces, that is,
to our technical backwardness? ' If this is the case,
then we should in many branches of industry stop
making progress right now, and decline to a posi-
tion even lower than our present pitiful technical
level which managed to link up bourgeois Russia
with world economy in an inseparable bond and
to bring it into the vortex of the imperialist war
for an EXPANSION OF ITS TERRITORY FOR
THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES which had out-
grown the State boundaries.

TO BE CONTINUED

Page 6

THE MILITANT

December 1 9, 1928.

December 15, 192

The Struggle in the Y. W. L.

THE letter sent to the Young Workers (Com'
munis't)" League of America after the Fifth
Congress. of the Young Communist International
was not made available to the League ranks until
an appreciable period after it was received. The
agents of Lqvestone who are in control of the
League's national executive committee, in whpse
eyes the Y„ ,C. I. document found disfavor, re-
sorted to the simple expedient of withholding its
publication, and suppressing its circulation. Dei
spite the protests of the minority, the right wing
Pol.com of the Party supported its League adher-
ents, and it was not until the minority had ap*
pealed to the"tececutive Committee, of the Y. C, J.
and the latter vhad responded, demanding ^he .im-
mediate publication of the letter, that it was fin-
ally published.

The minority in the League is as jubilant over
this letter and its,? victory" as a condemned prison-
cr who ,Has received three days of grape,

^Ehey sgeni to have forgotten entirely the ; les-
sons,^ plain' as : a pikestaff, to be learned irpni the
relations .p| Jhe'lY. C. I. to the struggle jri the
American jpague and Party in the past few years.
It 'is necessary therefore to repeat them.

The y.,C.--|-.-jnust follow, and has followed, ; the
general political .line of the C. I. on the Ameri-
can, question v^ch has been, unfortunately, "on
the whole for the political support of the Rutheh-
berg group". d|very decision of the Y. C. t.,
-which appearec|«to be favorable towards th>e pres-
ent minority (even at a time when it was the
majority of the N. *E. C.) invariably ended its
brief career; by .being transformed into support
of .the Lqyestpne (Zam) group in tl^e Lsatgue.
This occurred even though the present minority
in the League had, at every decisive point, a ma-
jority of ;tfj.e ^membership behind its , policies and
leadership. .Each, time this majority was meGhani-
tally routed eitKer by a thunderbolt decision of
the' Y. C. I.,- t by its representatives to the League
here, or by factional gerrymandering by the Lpye-
etone Central ^Coinmittee of the Party. VY&en
the latter method was used, the Y. C, 1 did riot
find a word of xriticism to make.

We recall, for instance, the scandalous action of
the. Lovestqne JGvE.G. in the League .convention
at Chicago in 192?, where an established majori-
ty delegation for the present minority .group was
squeezed into a minority against the will of .the
membership arid with the acquiescense of the
Y. C I, We recall the post-convention period
when the potfey of the Y. G. I, representative was
the .fraudulent "unity" line which consisted in
driving the weak and spineless elements of the
minority group into the Zam group and thus. . .'
liquidating the factional fight! (Later cm, it is
true, .a somewhat different song was sung after
Considerable damage had been caused.) We .re-
call, the iourtlr (Convention of the League, (New
York, 1927) .Despite -a favorable previous deci-
sion, of the Y,,.C. -I. to the then majority of the
N..E.C, the genuine unity group, both tfie reprg'
seqtatives of the -C. I. and the Y. C. I. turned the
contention and the present N. E, C. over to the
hands of |he Zam group, on the basis of the fact
that the Comintern had given its political sup-
port in the Party to the Lovestone group.

.What .is 'the . political line followed in the
present decision of the Y. C. I. that would lead
anyone to believe' that a new era has dawned?;
Absolutely nothing! Objectively analyzed, the
political content of the letter of the Y. C. I.— once
we discount the. little bonbons it gives to the min-
orifcy— is precisely that of the decision on the
American' question of the Sixth Congress of
the,Goinintem,i.,e., a denial of the train political
Contention ;of:.the minority that the 1 arty leader'
ship is a right wing which must be removed.

"Not one of the groups can claim the tide 'real
Left' or accuss the other of being 'Right*. So-

........ >••■<••>••••••••• ^

■ Our First Pamphlet! I
: THE DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE :
E COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAt «
» A Criticism of Fundamentals 5
= By :•
; ,JL D. TROTSKY Z
; IVtihsm Introduction by James P. Gannon *
I READY SOON i

■ 25 cents per Copy i
i In lots of 5 or more 18 cents per Copy :
S Order no-iv from »
I THE. MILITANT
X Box 120, Madison Square Station
I N.ew York City.

twaii'iAaaaaaaaiaaaaaaaaaaaaa

laaaaaaiaiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'ai

called Right errors were committed- by ail groups."

"One must CONDEMN THE REVIVAL OF

GROUP STRUGGLE IN THE AMERICAN

YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE. The Y.C.L.

as well as the Communist Party of the United States

have been guilty of a series of Right opportunist

errors but both contending groups are responsible

for them."

Not even Lovestone himself — although he may

and does make a few grimaces at some of the for-

mulations — could phrase it more satisfactorily. Is

he not ready to say in the middle of the night

that he has made some right errors also, that fac

tional struggle is evil, that "the League be united

on the line of the C.I. and Y.C.I, and that the

League or any part of it shall endeavor not to be

connected with either fractional group iii the

Party."?

The League Lovestone group is preparing to
maintain control of the organization by all means.
The process of cutting the minority to pieces is
proceeding right merrily. The functionaries of
the minority have been either removed or wangled
out of position throughout the country, (attempted
removal of Mates in Pitsburgh; removal of Frank'
feld as D. O. in New York; the squeezing down
of the minority in Chicago and the mechanical
usurpation of control by Plott and Lurye; the feast-
ing of the two eastern statesmen, Shohan and
Schaap, on two western districts; the removal of
Don and Rijak from the New York D. E. C. etc.,
etc., etc.) The minority has further given shame-
faced support to the expulsion for their views in
support of the Russian Opposition of the two
leaders of the Chicago league, Glotzer and Zalisko,
of Carl Cowl in Minneapolis, of Morganstern,
Lankin and Goodman in Philadelphia, of others in
New York and elsewhere. Indeed the entire ques-
tion of the issues raised by the Russian Opposi-
tion led by Trotsky now confronts the League min-
ority with its full force and demands of them a
clear-cut position which they have thus far not
given. They are showing a vacillation which
they never learned in any school of Bolshevism.
They flutter about piteously between calling
"Trotskyism"" a "left danger" or a "right danger".
They participate in the self-debasing campaign of
heaping attacks upon Trotsky and the Opposition,
and pour the official, newly warmed-over pap
down the already raw throats of the young mem-
bership which tries to digest it between gasps and
well-organized and well-timed cheers for the new
revelations.

The League minority comrades continue to rely
on, and be led by, elements whose most mali-
cious enemies could never accuse of consistency.
Their entire record has demonstrated that for them
"dialectics" is construed as a license for "chang-
ing their minds" every forty-eight hours. For them
mediocrity is placed at a premium. The minority
must wake up every morning in a cold sweat and
reach trembling for the latest paper to see whether
or not the night has passed successfully without a
new reversal of position by these shifting elements.
Neither the Lovestoneites in, the League, nor
the bulk of the minority comrades themselves, take
the latter 's protestations, of anti-Trotskyism serious-
ly.^ They cannot speak with conviction of Trot-
sky's "errors" on the questions of socialism in one
country, the Chinese revolution, the Anglo-Rus-
sian Committee, and so forth, for the simple rea-
son that they do not believe them to be errors.
Some of them realize already that tomorrow they
will themselves be confronted with their record
of today's feeble huzzahs for expulsion of the sup-
porters of the Opposition, since they must soon
choose between the position of the right wing
(Lovestone) and the viewpoint of the Russian Op-
position, and the choice of that tomorrow is al-
ready on the agenda. They cannot continue with
the poppycock of "educating" the Communist
youth against the Russian Opposition's Platform
which many of them hesitate to study and under-
stand for fear of the consequences which inevita-
ble conviction would bring. They should remem-
ber the admonition of Lenin, particularly to the'
Communist youth (in his speech at the 3rd Con-
gress of the Russian Y. C. L.) :

"A Communist who would dream of boasting of
his Communism on the( basis of the ready-made
conclusions taught to him, without performing the
most serious, the most difficult and persistent work
without understanding the facts of which he should
be extremely critical, would be a miserable Commu-
nist indeed."

The genuine Oppositionists in the League who
have taken a principle stand on the basic questions
of the International movement and suffered ex-
pulsion for their views are showing the way. Mor-
genstern, Lankin and Goodman in Philadelphia,

Glotzer and Zalisko in Chicago, Cowl and others
in Minneapolis, Gerry Allard in the mine fields,
the League group in Akron — these are names of
honor. They are showing the hesitant "leaders"
how to adopt a principle position and stand up and
fight for it as befits a Communist. They are set-
ting an example for those who really want to lead.
Around them and their example will be crystallized
the Bolshevik nucleus of the League which not
only in words but in deeds will struggle for the
reorganization of its leadership on a proletarian-
Communist basis and for the establishment of the
League in its rightful place in the vanguard of ,the
historic struggle now developing in the Party. — S

Lovestone Smashes
the Right Danger

The huge imposture which the Lovestone C.E.C
is carrying on in the name of a "fight" against the
•right danger in the Party is on in full swing. The
bewildered observer who cannot understand how
this faction can properly conduct a fight against
opportunism without exterminating itself has ap-
parently not yet even begun to fathom the re-
sourcefulness and "ability" of our Party leaders.
For them even such a superhuman effort is quite
possible, and that by the simple method of discov-
ering a right wing danger in quarters other than
their own. What could be more convenient?

In the Daily Worker of November 23, 1928,
John L. Sherman, one of the reporters, wrote a
story on the Hoover three billion dollar "stabili-
zation fund" proposal. It was neither brilliant
nor correct, that is to say it was neither better nor
worse than many stories, articles and editorials
that appeared before and since, written by far
more responsible spokesmen for the Party and but
little improved by the "corrections" which usually
follow them the very next day in a special col-
umn on the editorial page reserved for this pur-
pose.

It was Sherman's misfortune to concoct his arti-
cle at a time when a blood-sacdifice was necessary.
No sooner had it appeared than the eagle eye of 1
the sentinel on the beleaguered watch tower of
the Polcom espied it. Immediately the agit-prop
and organizational departments of the Party were
mobilized for action. A special meeting of the
Polcom was called to consider; the menace of
Sherman.

Who, it was asked, is John L. Sherman? All,
we know of him is that he came to the Party a
short while ago from City College of New York,
that alma mater from which so many of his inqui-
sitors have leaped directly into leadership of the
Party without any intermediary stops in the tur-
moil of the class struggle. But whom does he rep-
resent? Who follows him in the Party? Who,
outside of a handful of comrades in the Dailyi
Worker office, had even ever seen or heard the
name of this terrible ogre before he broke into un-
willing notoriety?

These doubters and conciliators who asked these
questions, these objective supporters of the right
wing, were quickly and mercilessly suppressed.
All the 12 -inch guns of the Lovestone group,
Lovestone, Bedacht, Minor, Pepper and Wolfe,
were wheeled into action. The breech was loaded,
the range found, the muzzles trained, a barrage
laid down, and when the smoke of the terrific de-
tonation had cleared, the target was riddled to bits.
On the battlefield, twittering and fluttering with
pain, lay a tiny sparrow.

The next day, the somewhat stupefied Sherman,
blinking his amazed eyes in the white glare of the
unaccustomed and pitiless publicity, delivered his
unconditional capitulation. He repented his shame-
less opportunist boldness, denounced himself for
being (or having been) a menacing right winger,
welcomed the sock in the jaw given him by the
Polcom, and in turn delivered a sock at "this dan-
ger and Trotskyism which is its crassest form."

Thus ended the first big engagement in the
war to make the Party safe for Opportunism.
Fiercer battle* are feared, however, in the near
future.

NOTICE

Comrade Maurice Spector, former editor of the
Canadian Worker and the Canadian Labor Month-
ly, who has been expelled from the Communist
Party of Canada for his support of the Russian
Opposition, has joined the staff of "The Militant"
as Associate Editor and will contribute articles
regularly.

Comrades wishing to communicate with comrade
Spector sho\ild address him at 231 Palmerston
Avenue, Toronto, Qnt., Canada.

The

CONTINI

VI.

Insufficient
Party a

The political S
necessary to state
Party that it "do
to . * . the tasks of
ship of the growi:
Secretariat furthe
as its major task
workers under it;
fensiv'e... it is in
the ideological a
the Party, especi
to enable it quick
and thus to make
developing class
The jnsufficier
of the Party and
which this letter (
characteristics of
shown by the fol

1. Overemp
delay in deck
election campa
munist."' Del
February 29th
election campa

2. The Palk
port of Socialii

3. The tend
strument for o
describing our
of the Labor I

4. The tent
campaign as o
campaign.

5. The ter
as the left wing

party candidal
ment that the?

6. Resistant
work (needle

7. Absolute
Union, and W

8. Failure t
cation and tr;
workers educ
membership
(Workers' Scl

9. Failure t

10. Failure
work and per
consisting of
despite repeal
men's Secreta

11. Sectaria
— separation
work.)

12. Refusal
ternal Party c

13. Non-re
work. "The
through trac

organizations,
through a 1
Working Wo

14. The c
Worker, affc
derestimation
"the collectiv
as. described I
Party, the Da
has been a s.
litical writing:
its Communi
rade Minor,
kal Committ
publication c
ment in the
articles, again:
to make a m
Prop. On I
vation of th-
at the preser
w.riters of th
has been G
without exce
bourgeois er
dation of tria
their replac«
been acquire
been to try
rather than

The Dail>-
the class s.tr
analysis of c
elopments.
frivolously !i
., ial and mae
.. of three- sep
years-^-all o
factional re
point Comr
comrade for
Building t
task which
staff must 1
ically equip
1*. Failu
strengthen
a gradual a
ia many ce-
chiraitetinti

December 1?, 1928.

THE. MILITANT

Pai?e 7

The Right Danger in the American Party

CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE

VI. Insufficient Appreciation of Leading Role of
Party and Failure to Build It.

The political Secretariat of the ECC1 found it
necessary to state in its letter of April 13th to our
Party that it "deems it necessary to call attention
to . » . the tasks of the Party in the sphere of leader-
ship of the growing workers' mass movement;" the
Secretariat further stated that our Party "has now
as its major task to mobilize and to organize the
workers under its banner against the capitalist of-
fensive... it is immediately necessary to intensify
the ideological and organizational preparation of
the Party, especially the local Party organization,
to enable it quickly to mobilize its forces and means
and thus to make it ready for a leading role in the
developing class struggle."

The insufficient appreciation of the leading role
of the Party and the failure to build the Party to
which this letter called attention is one of the main
characteristics of the Lovestone group. This is
shown by the following facts:

1. Overemphasis on labor party. Slowness and
delay in deciding upon and announcing our own
election campaign, (Lovestone article April ""Com-
munist."' Delay in acting on minority motion of
February 29th for mobilization of Party tor our own
election campaign.) Allowing SP to enter field first.

2. The Palken^. Bearak and Milwaukee cases (sup-
port of Socialist Party candidates).

3. The tendency to make our Party into a mere in-
strument for organizing a Labor Party. (Minnesota),
describing our election campaign, as an "organic part
of the Labor Party campaign." (Lovestone)

4. The tendency to look upon our own election
campaign as of less importance than the labor party
campaign.

5. The tendency to look upon our Party merely
as the left wing in farmer-labor organizations (running

party candidates in primary elections without state-
ment that they are Communists). (Minnesota).

6. Resistance to Party leadership in trade union
work (needle trades).

7. Absolute denial of Party leading role (Furriers'
Union, and Workers' Delegation to the USSR).

8. Failure to carry on genuine Communist edu-
cation and training — opportunist confusing of mass
workers education and the education of the Party
membership and training of Communist cadres
(Workers* School).

9. Failure to build Party in campaigns.

10. Failure to create Party appartus for Women's
work and permitting foreign language organizations,
consisting of housewives, to take the leading role
despite repeated demands of the International Wo-
men's Secretariat.

11. Sectarian approach to Party building (Bedacht
— separation of Part)- building work from mass
work.)

12. Refusal to print Swabeck's pamphlet on in-
terna! Party organization and Party building.

13. Non-recognition of Party role in Women's
work. "The working women will march to power

through trade unions, through clubs, housewives'
organization?, through cooperative leagues, and
through a labor party." (First issue- New York
Working Women,-"' 1928.)

14. The official organ of the Party, the Daily
Worker, affords a devastating example of the un-
derestimation of the role of the Communist press as
"the collective organizer of the Party and the masses"
as described by Lenin. As an organ of a Communist
Party, the Daiily Worker is seriously deficient. There
has been a systematic liquidation of Communist po-
litical writing in the Daily Worker to the point where
its Communist character has been weakened. Com-
rade Minor; the editor, made a motion in the Polit-
ical Committee on April 19th, 1928, to permit the
publication of the establishment of anti-war depart-
ment in the paper April 1st. Instructed to publish .
articles. against Shipstead, Comrade Minor was obliged
to make a motion to turn the work over to the Agit-
Prop. On the ground "of the almost total depri-
vation of the Daily Worker of all political writers
at the present time. . ." One of the chief political
writers of the Daily Worker for the last five months
has been Comrade Nearing, whose articles almost
without exception, contain gross reformist and petty
bourgeois errors. There has been a systematic liqui-
dation of tried Communist journalists on the staff and
their replacement by elements whose training has
been acquired on the capitalist press. The line has
been to try to make Communists out of journalists
rather than to train Communists as journalists.

The Daily Worker today gives neither a picture of
the class struggle in the USA nor any Communist
analysis of even the main features of imperialist dev-
elopments. The Daily Worker has been treated
frivolously by the Lovestone group both in the editor-
ial arid management departments (the appointment
of three- separate business managers in less than two
years— all of them incompetent and all appointed for
factional reasons, and rejection of proposal to ap<
point Comrade Wagenknecht, the most competetent
comrade for the position )

Building the prestige of the Daily Workers is a major
task which now confronts the Party. Its editorial
staff must be organized from among the best polit-
kaMy equipped comrades.

15\ Failure t6 utilize the mass Campaigns to
strengthen the nuclei arid build the Party, . allowing
a ' gifaddal '.and growing distotegratidtt t>f the nuclei
ixk ©any "centers, if few" York, etc. to take plate, are
cfia*a£t«ris#c's of the present leadership

The following is the third installment of the docu-
ment submitted by the delegation of the Opposition in
the American Party to the Sixth World Congress of
the Communist International, in July 1928 and signed
by Jamess P. Cannon, William Z. Foster, William F.
Dunne, Alex Bittelman, J. W. Johnstone, Manuel Gomes
and George Siskihd.

The statement in the Daily Worker of December 11,
1928, thet "immediately upon request of the Oppdsitictftj
the Central Executive Committee instructed the Daily
Worker to print this document" is false. Even before
the delegates returned from the Sixth World Congress
of the Comintern, the Lovestone Polcom had defeated
motions made by the minority to publish in the Party
press the speeches and platform of the minority delegates
to the Congress.

The document printed here had to be circulated sur-
reptitiously by the minority, and when it was discovered
by the Polcom majority, it, together with other documents
was officially denounced as anti-Party, and its circula-
tipn strictly prohibited. This document was written in
July. Only after five months had elapsed, and after
its publication had commenced in The Militant, did the
Lovestone C. E. C. make the "generous" gesture or print-
ing it in the Daily Worker. — Ed.

16. Extravagant financial programs -which place
unduly heavy burdens upon the membership and
make it difficult for the lower paid workers to join
and remain in the Party and fulfill the demands made
upon them.

VII.

Of

OPPORTUNIST APPLICATION
UNITED FRONT POLICY

The C.I. line against the United Front from the
top with reactionary trade xinion, liberal and So-
cialist Party leaders, and for united front with the
workers against them applies with special empha»
sis in America. The new objective factors making
for-the discontent of the masses and strengthening
their impulse and will to struggle create increasing-
ly favorable conditions for the application of the
united front tactics directly with the workers and
leading them in the fight against the reactionary
leaders and the capitalists. The firm adherence
to this basic conception is a prerequisite for the
full utilization of the possibilities to broaden and
intensify the fight of the workers and build the
Party.

The complete degeneration of the Socialist Par-
ty and its incorporation -into the capitalist — A. F.
of L. — police machine puts before the Party as
one of its essential tasks the smashing frontal at-
tack, against it and its entire leadership all along
the line in order to. destroy its influence over the
workers.

The Lovestone majority has not understood the
C.I. policy on the united front and has applied it
in an opportunistic manner. This is demonstrated
by a whole series of gross errors, many of which
remain unacknowledged and uncorrected.

Examples which illustrate the opportunist line
in this respect may be cited as follows:

1. False estimation of the Socialist Party and
calculation on a "left wing" within it which would
work with us for a labor party. This is indicated
by the motion of Lovestone to send a number of
comrades into the Socialist Party "for the pur-
pose of working for our labor party policy in the
Socialist Party", and the rejection of the motion
by the minority declaring such tactics to be false
and calling for a policy of frontal attack against
the Socialist Party all along the line. (Polcom.
Minutes, December 14, 1927),

The same policy was executed in the support in
the elections of the Socialist Judge Panken, an
agent of the black gang in the needle trades who
was likewise supported by the Republican Party
and "the New York World and 'New Tork Times.
The majority stubbornly defended this decision in
spite of the most energetic protest of the minority;
the support of the Socialist Bearak in Boston; and
the proposal to support Berger, the National Chair-
man of the Socialist Party in Milwaukee; (criti-
cized in the letter of the E.C.C.I.).

The policy in the Panken Case was not an inci-
dental error; it proceeded from a false conception of
the Lovestone group. It was proposed as a nation-
al policy in a program submitted to the Polcom by
Comrade Lovestone, which contained the provi-
sion that our Party should run candidates on its
own ticket only in those cases where it can be dr)ne
"without endangering the election of candidates
rtinning locally on the tickets of other working
class parties." (Point 22 of Lovestone's proposals
on the. Labor Party Campaign, Polcom Minutes,
Oct. 7, 1927.)

2. The Open Letter to the Socialist Party, an
error of the Polcom- as a whole, which was pointed
out in the letter of the E.G.GJ.

3. The united front made by the Party leaders

of the Furrier's Union, members of the Lovestone
group in the Party, with the so-called middle group
in the Union, under conditions which surrender
the leadership to the: latter and on the basis
of a written agreement containing the unheard of
provisi6n that "there shall be no Party or clique
control of the Union",

4. Building united front in Anti-Imperialist
Work too much on top and With liberals and not:
from below among the workers. Concealing the
role and face of the Party in Anti-Imperialist
work. Removal of Comrade Gomez as Secretary
of the Anti-Imperialist League in order to secure
a "non Communist or someone not know as- a
Communist". (Polcom Minutes, December 2 J,
1&27- — reconsidered at a subsequent meeting un-
der pressure of minority). Failure to do serious
antt-imperialist work as shown by refusal to send
workers into the American forces in China and
Nicaragua on the ground that it was necessary
to proceed slowly and concentrate on work at
home.

5. Failure to publicly criticise Brop'hy and other
progressives in the Mine Workers' Union united
front despite numerous record motions to that ef-
fect passed under pressure of the minority.

6. Wrong form of united front with so-called
"Tolerance Group" and Shelly group in the In-
ternational Ladies'Garment Workers' 1 Union; fail-
ure to criticize them, failure in the united front
with them to build our own strength and forces in
the I. L, G, W. U.

7. United front with Brennan in the Minets
Union under conditions which rehabilitated the
prestige of this faker and brought discredit on the
Party and weakened its forces in the Anthracite.

8. Liberal, legislative, constitutional and vul'
garly "American" line in the "Council for tiie
Protection of the Foreign Born".

9. Opposition to leading role of Negro prole-
tariat in united front Negro race movement by
Comrade "Moore, Party leader of Negro work,
corrected by Polcom on the initiative of the min-
ority.

10. Persistence in organizing workers and far-
mers in one Party (Farmer Labor Party) contrary
to C, I. decision.

11. Wrong orientation in Women's wort,
basing it on housewives instead of devoting main
attention to women in industry despite repeated
letters from the International Women's Secretariat
on this point. Failure to draw women industrial
workers into leading activities; the entire leading
committee for women's work in New York ts
composed of school teachers, with the exception
of Comrade Wortis, a leading right winger in t Tie
needle trades.

CONTINUED IN NEXT ISSUE

It Can and Will Be Done

Our opponents circulate two contradictory stories ;»bout
us. They say one day that we are financed by the
wealthy enemies of the Party and the working class. The
next day they say we will never be able to publish an-
other issue of THE MILITANT. Both these stories
are like all their stories.

Complacent officials who stand aloof from the revplu-
tionafy workers and know nothing of their spirit and
capacity for sacrifice cannot believe that a small group
of them could dare to fake such a burden as the publi-
cation of a paper on their shoulde.%, But we have been
identified with many such proletarian enterprises in the
past and know that we are only doing over again what
has often been done before by convinced revolutionaries.

The generous contributions of a small group of Com-
munist workers who have stood with us from the first,
plus loans made on personal responsibility, plus vol-
untary work, has made possible the first two issues of
THE MILITANT. The same resources, plus the help
of a wider circle' of supporters, will make possible the
continued publication of THE MILITANT and its de-
velopment into a weekly, the publication of the pamph-
lets and other necessary expenses of our principle »rugg(e.

We say this because we arc convinced that the Com-
munist workers will increasingly support us as the issufe*
are made- clear to them. The comparative few who ate
beginning this historic struggle are unavoidably' requited
to make heavy sacrifices in this respect and are doing
so. It is now absolutely necessary to. organise the fi-
nancial support on a wider basis. Your help is also
needed in this revolutionary work. Tire most depend-
able financial foundation for our great enterprise is .the
regular weekly or monthly contributions of sympathetic
workers to the sustaining fund. The organization of
this fund has already taken place. If you agree with the
object it is your duty to help

Join the Pledge Fund and send ybur contribution to
THE MILITANT, Box, 120, Madison Square Station,
New York City. .

Page S.

THE MILITANT

December 15, 1928.

Letters from the Militants

KANSAS CITY

Kansas City, Missouri, Nov. 9, 1928.
Dear Comrade:

Your letter of the 7th reached me about 10 hours after
I had been expelled from the Party.

November 8th, 10 P. M. the District Polcom met with
most of the D. E. C. members present. Comrade Kassen
was not present but had sent in a signed statement as
follows:

"I consider the action of_the National Polcom in remo-
ing Cannon, Abern and Shachtman from the positions
and their expulsion from the Party as unjustified. There-
fore I disapprove of the action of the National Polcom.
Signed, — -Sam Kassen."

He was expelled from the Party for being a Trot-
6kyite. Kassen was a member of the D. E. C.

I was also a member of the D. E. C. of the Party.
Both of us, as you know, have belonged to the Party
since it was first organised and to the Left Wing before
that.

Well, Jim, I hold no hard feelings against my comrades
who expelled Kassen and myself. I am sure they were
sincere, but they had become fanatical from the poisonous
propaganda the regime had spread in the last four years.
I shall avoid all personalities in our differences at this
time. The night I was expelled an amusing but tragical
incident occurred. The meeting was adjourned, we got
our hats and coats and all tjie comrades left in a body
and went one way and I went another way. No time
wasted in even bidding each other good by.

I look back now and ponder over the hard task I had
to convince myself that Trotsky and the Russian Comrades
of the Opposition were traitors to the Revolution. It
reminds me of feeing a good Catholic and believing all
and not asking any questions.

The rank and file of the Communists are honest and
when they once get the facts they will soon act. Persc-
cution will only make us better Communists.

With greetings to all the comrades in New York from
Kassen and myself,. I remain,

A. A. BUEHLER

VINCENT DUNNE

Minneapolis, Minn., Nov. 8, 1928.
Bear Comrades:

We were taken completely >by surprise as we had no
information before your statement came to the different
comrades in the- mail last week. This was quickly fol-
lowed by a letter from the "cleansed" minority boasting
of their part in the shameful expose.

Almost all of OUR comrades feel that here St last is
the key to the riddle that we have been trying to un-
derstand for so maijy years. That is, we too have come
to realise during the time of the Congress that interna-
tional politics were being played with us while we were
still attempting to out-«mart these bureaucrats within the
confines of our own little Party.

We .have EVERY important comrade of the old op-
position with us. They have accepted the slogan,
"Against the Bureaucrats", as a slogan of action.

The comrades realize that this is not the ordinary
Party fight and that all comrades who take a position
now of Opposition will in all probability find themselves
confronted with a campaign of the most unjust slander
and villification. Most of us understand that there will
be those who cannot understand the pressure and who
will desert. We also know that with the correct line we
will be able to strengthen our force's by bringing over
to us those elements that are honest and politically alert,
those with that old fighting heart.

VINCENT R. DUNNE.

FROM A YOUNG COAL MINER

Frederick, Colorado, Nov. 4, 1928.
Dear Comrades:

I got a copy of the. document that you sent to a com-
rade here in Frederick and at the beginning I was tre-
mendously surprised.

The entire matter hits me so hard that I don't know
whether I have come back to earth or not. It is very
difficult to form at an instant an opinion on matters that
you briefly touch upon. I mean the. Trotsky question.
I totally agree with your charges against the Lovestone
groups "incapability, unscrupolousness, bureaucracy,
etc." As a vivid example we have your expulsion as
a verification of the functions of this outfit. It is a
tragedy to a revolutionary organization to tolerate such
hideous actions as this "Lewis machine 1 ' of our Party
has perpetrated and they will again endeavor to force
your expulsion down our throats. But as I look over the
whole matter, now, I see that the Lovestone group has
bitten off more than they can chew, when they begin
to expel the best leaders of our Party merely for feeir
views on political questions.

It is the membership of our Party, the masses of work-
ers throughout the country that will suffer because of
this despicable act of the bureaucracy in our Party. It
shows once more the "necessity of rank and file rule in-
stead of a few leaders who can utilize their position for
personal advantages and machine rule.

The slogans must be:

"Save the Party!"

"Lovestoneism Must Go!"

"For a Communist Party of the Workers!"

GERRY ALLARD

FROM THE FIRST COMMUNIST LEGISLATOR

Williston, N. Dakota, Nov. 24, 1928.
Dear Comrades:

I had just started to write a letter to the Daily Worker
when the Militant was laid on the table before me. In
this letter to the Daily Worker I intended to ask the
editors of that paper why they df3 not publish the pro-
gram of the Opposition (Trotsky, Zinoviev) since they
had devoted two pages to the Cannon-Lovestone Party
differences?

To. accuse each other of being "right wing" with-

out showing the program that is in contention, leaves
the Party members, likewise the rank and file masses in
the dark. As to the writer, he has seen nothing in the
Party press, other than that the Oppositionists were
working with the counter-revolutionary forces, and that
they were rejected by the whole Party membership, not
only this, but were expelled from the Party by a vote of
more than 99 percent of the membership. Never a peep
in our Party press about the Opposition leaders being ex-
iled and put behind the bars. What little has leaked out
from' our Party .press about the Opposition and their
program was so twisted that many of the Party members
here thought the platform of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kam-
enev and others was that which was adopted by the Rus-
sian Party headed by Stalin.

I wish to state that the Militant gave me the first ink-
ling of what had taken place in the C. P. of Russia
and the American Party. Likewise the Opposition pro-
gram, yet I have read everything I could get since the

THE EXPELLED

The following is a partial list of the comrades expelled
in the present campaign of the Lovestone leaders to
split the Party by the expulsion of all who fight them
on principle grounds. The expelled comrades have
taken an open stand for the platform of the Russian Op-
position and opposed the expulsion of Cannon, Abern
and Shachtman. Most of the comrades expelled in
Cleveland were expelled on trumped-up charges, but the
real reason was their unyielding opposition to the op-
portunist bureaucrats of the Party, and particularly for
their refusal to give up their fight against the corrupt
misleaders of Ithe Party in the South Slavic Section and
in the Cleveland district.

While fhe opportunists expel the revolutionary Com-
munist workers and the active fighters who have founded
the Party and helped to build it up, they continue to
draw into the ranks of the Party — and into" its., leading
circles and responsible positions — petty-bourgeois dille-
tants, careerists and second-hand intellectuals. The fight
against this disruptive campaign is the foremost duty of
the proletarian Communists.

In the forthcoming issues of The Militant we shall
print the Party and revolutionary records of the expelled
Communists, which, for lack of space, we are compelled
to omit in this number. They bear proud records of
service to the cause of the revolution which are in them-
selves a crushing reply to those dubious individuals who
so expertly slander them with the infamous terms of
"renegades", "counter-revolutionaries", and the like.
CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

JAMES P. CANNON, member Polcom of the C.E.C.

ARNE SWABECK, member of the C.E.C.

MARTIN ABERN, member of the C.E.C.

MAX SHACHTMAN, alternate to the C.E.C.
CANADA

MAURICE SPECTOR, member of Polcom, and
E.C.C.I.

NEW YORK

MAURICE L. MALKIN, member of Furriers Union.

JOSEPH FRIEDMAN, member of Y. W. L.
PHILADELPHIA

M. MORGENSTERN, member of Y.W.L. Dist. Bureau.

LEON GOODMAN, member of Y.W.L. Dist. Bureau.

SOL LANKIN, member Y.W.L. District Committee.
CLEVELAND

JAMES ANTOLOVICH, member of Machinists
Union.

PETER MARGETICH, Ohio District Organizer of
South Slavs.

MATT GRZINCICH, nucleus financial secretary.

D. GURMAN, stockyard worker.

G. MALJEVAC, member of Section Exec. Committee.

P. MATAKANOVICH, secretary South Slavic Work-
ers Club.

V. UJCICH, cement worker.

P. SVETINA, factory worker.

G. MILLER, member of Section Execi|tive Committee.

ELMER BOICH, member of District Bureau and
Secretariat.

JOHN FOLEY, member of agit-prop depart of D.E.C.
DETROIT

BARNEY MASS, member Auto Workers Union.

RUTH REYNOLDS, editor of Dodge Worker (Nu-
cleus No. 5).

CHICAGO

ALBERT M. GLOTZER, member of League N.E.C.

HELEN JUDD, member of District Control Commis-
sion.

MIKE ZALISKO, League and Party organiser in
coal fields.

ROGER COMPTON, agit-prop director of nucleus.
TWIN CITIES (Minneapolis and St. Paul

VINCENT R. DUNNE, member of D.E.C. and Dis-
trict Bureau.

KARL SKOGLUND, member of D.E.C. and District
Bureau.

OSCAR COOVER, member of D.E.C. and District
Bureau.

O. R. VOTAW, member of D.E.C. and Dist. Bureau.

C. R. HEDLUND. P. G. HEDLUND.

MARTIN SODERBERG. SAM LESSIN.

LOUIS ROSELAND. A. T. HEDLUND

SAM ZALMANOFF. ALVA HEDLUND.

MAX KAUFMAN. JOE ROSS.

MRS. SCHWARTZ. A. SHROGOWITZ.

HELEN HEDLUND.

CARL COWL, member of the Y.W.L.

SARA AVRIN, member of the Y.W.L.

FANNIE BARACH, member of the Y.W.L.

SIMON BARACH, member of the Y.W.L.
KANSAS CITY

A. A. BUEHLER, member of D.E.C.

SAM KASSEN, member of D.E.C.
NEW HAVEN

S. GENDELMAN, member of D.E.C.

October revolution.

In conclusion, I for one, unequivocally denounce any
act of giving concessions to the Kulaks and Nepmen,
when the withholding of concessions cannot cause any
violent eruption to the Party in power. Arfy Party mem-
ber acting otherwise* is not a true Bolshevik.

A. C. MILLER

P. S. You arc at liberty to publish this letter or any
part of it. They say that- 1 was the first Communist that
climbed into legislature in the U. S.— 192T North Da-
kota Session.

A. C.-M,

THE CLEVELAND EXPULSIONS

Cleveland, -Ohio, Nov. 29, 1928.
Dear Comrade:

I am in receipt of your statement relative to your ex-
pulsion from the Party. It may interest you to know
that I was expelled several weeks ago because -I dared
to prefer charges against the District Polcom majority.'
I charged them with corruption, material and political,
embezzlement of Party funds,,.and a dozen other charges
which they knew were true. I demanded a thorough in-
vestigation or I would expose them before the memblr-
ship meeting. This they feared and without the form-
ality of charges they railroaded me out of the Party by
a 5 to 4 vote. Beside myself the following comrades were
expelled: Margetich, South Slavic District Organizer and
alternate to the D.E.C, Matakanovich, Maljevac, Jucich,
Grzincich, Gasparac, Svetina, Miller, Slabak. Comrade
Lesko was expelled a couple of months ago. He was a
member of the D.E.C. and the Polcom charge against
him was never proved. He was expelled for no other
reason but his sympathy with Trotsky.

All above-mentioned comrades are proletarians, fact-
ory workers. I was a member of the District Polcom and
the secretariat prior to my expulsion. Appeal was sent
to Lovestone, two weeks ago against the Polcom deci-
sion, but no reply was received. The attempt to tyran-
nize over the Opposition in the Party has no limit.
Bureaucracy is increasing daily in the Party. Self-cri-
ticism is only an empty gesture 01} the part of our bu-
reaucrats. To fight for democracy in the Party today
requires courage and determination. This can be sup-
plied iby the development of the revolutionary spirit
within oneself. These are times when we must oppose
the crowd of fanatics even in the face of ridicule and in-
timidation. We would like to have you come here and
speak at a meeting which wc will arrange for you. Please
inform me if you could come and when.

ELMER BOICH.

"YOU ARE WORSE THAN FASCISTS"

Under the supervision of the. Lovestone ..commissar,
Dr. Markoff, the membership meeting of the Italian fracr
tion in New York took place on Wednesday, November
28, with about 50 comrades present. The secretary of
the Bureau, Candela, was given unlimited time for his
report against "Trotskyism". The meeting had decided
that each roeraber be given 10 minutes, twice. But after
the first scries of speakers, Markoff arbitrarily cut off
the discussion and demanded that the vote be taken.
A motion was introduced to endorse the position of the
C.E.C. and the Foster comrades introduced their reso-
lution; but when our comrade attempted to read our
resolution in support of the Russian Opposition of com-
rade Trotsky, and the American Opposition, Markoff said
that it could neither be introduced nor read at the
meeting.

"All those who support the Opposition," said Mark-
off, "are not only counter-revolutionists, but Fascisti and
worse than Mussolini." To our comrade who demanded
the right to speak in answer to the stupidities of Can-
dela and the vileness of Markoff, . the latter 6aid, "As a
member of the C.E.C-, I remove Refugee from the Ital-
ian Bureau, with no right to speak any more, even at
the meeting." Markoff made the most slanderous at-
tacks upon our comrades, shouting that we had been
in the Party for only a few months, denying that we
had ever fought in the movement or struggle in Italy.
But the comrades who supported us have long records
of membership in the Socialist Party, then the Com-
munist Party of Italy; of persecution by and bitter
struggle against Fascism in Italy; of being the heart and
muscle of the anti-Fascist struggle in this country; of
service on the strike picket line, arrests, police slug-
gings, imprisonment. Only one that has completely lost
his honor and integrity, and lacks all contact with the
ranks, can flaunt his shameless slanders against revolu
tionary workers with such brazenness as did Markoff.

A good number of the comrades, sickened by the
proceedings, left before the vote was taken. Eight voted
for our.postion; 3 abstained, saying that not all that
was necessary had been said at the meeting: 3 abstained,
saying that they did not know enough of the situation;
10 voted for the resojution of the Foster comraoes; 1
voted against everything, including Trotsky; 1 voted for
the C.E.C. (Zucca), saying that he 'believed Trotsky was
correct on some questions. The rest, a minoritp of the
membership, voted with the C.E.C. majority resolution.

Markoff then declared to the eight who had voted
for the Opposition: "Consider yourselves expelled, and
get out of the hall." We did not, of course, leave at
the command of this cheap bureaucrat. Our comrades
are not new fighters. Under Bordiga and Maffi and other
heroes of the Italian revolution they have fought against
Fascism and for our cause. Under the banner of Trotsky
and the Opposition we continue our fight for the victory
of Bolshevism.— JOHN MENELLA.

"SINGING JAILBIRDS"

"Singing Jailbirds" is by far the best production yet
offered by the New Playwrights and marks a significant
step forward to the development of a Worker's Theatre.
We regret that unusual urgencies of space prevent The
Militant from printing the extended review which it
deserves. Friendd of The Militant should make it a
point to attend the performance on Tuesday, Dec. 18
which is fo- the benefit of our paper.

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