Page THE MILITANT April 1, 1929.
April 1, 1979.
THE MILITANT Page Next Steps in the Struggle New Dawes Plan for the Old Boston Works for a Weekly Militant Fund Schlos.
grounds Material for the National Conference Discussion months since our decla By James Cannon restrainted those afflicted with weak knees and ration in support of the Russian Opposition, made faint hearts from joining our struggle. Those who on the occasion of our return from the Sixth Con passed to our side through this selective process gress of the Communist International, was ans. only grew firmer in their convictions and stronger wered by expulsion from the Party. The period in their confidence under the pressure on us.
which has intervened since that time has seen a steady development of the work of popularizing has not been in vain. The nature of the struggle The experience of the International Opposition been carried on in the face of a campaign of falsi lows can no longer be attracted to it. It will be fication and incitement reminiscent of Palmer the duty of the Conference to sum up this Interdays and having not a little of the same essential national experience and to say that capitulationist content.
tendencies are a foreign substance in the move There could be no better testimony to the revo ment of the Communist Opposition which must be lutionary impulses in the Party ranks than the fact cast aside in the most ruthless fashion at their first that the revolutionary platform of the Opposition appearance.
was able in so short a time to make its way through Capitulation on the terms of the bureaucratic the cordon sanitaire of corrupted bureaucracy destroyers of the Communist International means and to find supporters in every section of the to give up participation in intellectual and political Party, in all parts of the country, who stood up in life at a time when the movement stands most in defense of that platform even to the point of ex need of this participation by all the creative forces.
pulsion from the Party. These are the vanguard It means to become a silent partner in the criminal fighters for the Communist ideal and the living destruction of the Russian Revolution and the proof of its vitality: Their firmer union on a na. Communist International. It means treason to tional scale and their collective preparation for Communism and to the cause of the working the next stages of the struggle now stand on the class.
order of the day. The National Conference of the We have no doubt that the Conference will Opposition, which will convene in Chicago on May estimate the question in this way and give a rev.
17th, will be devoted to these tasks. The thoughts oltionary answer to it. In doing so it will have of the most reliable and tested militants of Ameri to go beneath the surface and attack the germs of can Communism are turning to the forthcoming this disease which present themselves in the form Conference which is fraught with such a great of ultra legalism in the struggle for our views.
significance for the future.
This is the advice frequently given to us by The Conference will sharpen the line of our sympathizers of our cause who think suffistruggle and work out the organization forms for cient to hold views in secret and do nothing to the next stage of its development. The action of advance them because it is prohibited by the bu the Convention in rejecting our appeal and deny reaucrats. This advice must be specifically and ing us the right to be heard, will naturally have no categorically rejected by the Conference as it has influence in halting this determination. The Con been in all of our activities since the expulsions vention, which was packed and prearranged by began. The movement of the International Com the mechanical exclusion of the Opposition, ac munist Opposition is a fighting movement and it complished nothing whatever except to demon will triumph by struggle. We can agree to give strate again the bankruptcy of the regime. Formal up extraordinary methods and organization in this in this as a substitution for conclusions based on free col rights of all our comrades throughout the Inter way cannot be taken struggle only when our Party rights and the Party lective work of revolutionaries.
national are restored.
The question has been asked by timid people While confirming the fighting methods have in the Party ranks whether the action of the Con employed in the Communist struggle for our views vention, by the Stalin leadership in the Comintern, will intensification and further development, the Con prompt the Opposition to give up the struggle and ference will also have to answer the question of a present policy toward the Opposition on an Inter ulationism, has a superficial attractiveness.
national scale. It is a significant feature of the could be seriously entertained by the Opposition, Opposition movement that not a single voice in however, only if it had become clear that the favor of this has been heard in its ranks. De Communist International, of which our Party is spite the difficult circumstances under which we a part, had definitely left the proletarian path.
conduct our work, or perhaps because of them, the This is by no means the case. The bureaucratizadetermination to carry on the fight to a victorious tion and opportunist politics of its upper stratum conclusion, no matter how long it takes nor how are the objects of our attack.
hard the road, has been voiced on every side. We The Comintern possesses enormous revolutionare confident at the National Conference will ary resources in its proletarian ranks which are beconfirm this attitude unanimously.
ginning to assemble and take shape. The OpposiThere has been much speculation in the circles tion must continue to base itself on them. Our of the party bureaucracy on the appearance of a policy will become the policy of the proletarian Zinoviev tendency, that is, a tendency toward forces of the Comintern if the correct tactics in capitulation, treason to principle, in the furtherance of it are employed. split in the of the Opposition. Such things are, of Comintern is the aim of Stalinist rats.
course, possible on the part of individuals, but we The unification of the Comintern on the basis of do not believe they will be seen. The nature of Leninism, against the bureaucrats and opportunists, the campaign against us was not without its pos is the slogan of the Opposition. With this slogan itive side in our favor. The fact that expulsion we will defeat all attempts to isolate us from the and unprecedented calumny had to be faced by Party membership. The tactics proceeding from every Party member coming out for our platform this slogan will be the means of helping the proletarian tendency in the Party to find the right line and march on the same path with us.
THE MILITANT Alongside the task of penetrating ever deeper into the Party ranks with cur agitation, we have Published twice a month by the Opposition Group in the Communist Party of America the task of recruiting and organizing the revolutionary workers outside the Party who are beAddress all mail to: Box 120, Madison Square coming attracted to our banner in large numbers.
Station, New York, is a revolutionary duty of the greatest imPublishers address at 340 East 19th Street, New York, portance which the Opposition must perform. The Telephone: Gramercy 3411, Subscription rate: 00 per year. Foreign, 50 present leadership has failed miserably in this.
Bundle rates, 3c per copy.
Among these non Party, Comunists are thous5c per copy ands and tens of thousands who have been aliena Editor Associate Editors ted and estranged from the Party but who remain Martin Abern true to the cause of communism. The problem James Cannon Max Shachtman Maurice Spector of organizing them is not separate from the work within the Party ranks but is bound up with it.
VOL. 11.
APHIL 1, 1929 No. The National Conference of the Opposition must work out the organization form for this double Entered as second class mail matter November 28, 1928, at the post office at New York, under the act of March 3, 1979.
The Boston group of the Communist Opposition opened its campaign for the Weekly Militant with the holding of a Vetcherinka on Sunday night, March 24th which was attended by a good crowd. profit of 50.
was realied by the affair and contributed to the fund for the Weekly. Comrade berg, who presided, reminded the comrades of a similar gathering held during the war which many of those present had attended which lad marked the launching of the Boston section of the Left Wing movement and said the same spirit which had animated the pioneers of Communism in those days was in our Opposition movement today.
The Boston group held a special meeting on Saturday, March 23rd, on the occasion of Comrade Cannon visit to the city and decided to accept a quota of 250. for the fund for the Weekly. The amount raised at the Vetcherinka is the first installment on this pledge.
In our last issue we remarked that reports from Kansas City and other places were still awaited. Since then has been heard from in the form of a letter from Shorty Buehler, the veteran of the Communist movement there who is famous for doing things which others consider impossible. comrades pledge 100. says the letter. Enclosed find check for 20. as a starter on the pledge. Keep up the good fight.
All Glotzer, for the Chicago group, sends along another 56. to apply on their pledged quota of 500. This makes a total of 176. 50 from Chicago so far which puts it ahead of all points East, but still behind Minneapolis.
Individual responses to our circulation of collection lists are beginning to come in. Quong, Chinese comrade who has already contributed more than five dollars through the Chicago group, sends another dollar on his own list. Charlie Byrne sends a five spot on his own account from Youngstown. Joseph Keller, of Cleveland, sends five dollars and says, am very glad to hear the news of the campaign for a Weekly Militant and will do my best in securing subs and money toward its maintenance. The beginning may appear slow, but there surely will be good results later.
Alex Schreiber, treasurer of the Detroit group, sends 75 the first installment and Rosa Powell sends another contribution of three dollars from Richmond California. collection of 60. 50 for the Weekly was taken at the Trotsky protest meeting held in New York on March 9th. In addition to this a number of individual contributions have been received, the largest of which is 10. from comrade Louis Stone.
The struggle to maintain our Militant even as a semi monthly has been a hard one which required sacrifices all around of a kind which only pioneers animated by real convictions and Communist determination are able to make. The establishment and maintenance of the Weekly will be a still harder struggle for a time, but the Opposition Militants will go through with it just the same.
The Weekly Militant must and will be realized.
Amount necessary to start Weekly 2, 000. 00 Previously acknowledged 382. 60 Received since last issue. 180. 70 in Paris, in an attempt to settle for the By Max Shachtman vested in Germany since the inauguration of the Dawes Plan.
nth time the question of German reparations There is no doubt that a temporary solution and debt payments, has projected the most ambi ing bank will not settle the question. At best it. by the typical method of capitalist anarchytious plan for American imperialist domination of will succeed only in delaying for a brief period Europe that has yet been The plan the final revolutionary solution, can be found to this problem. But the solution calls for the establishment of an international debt bank for the ostensible purpose of regulating the Such a bank cannot settle the question to the proletariat. already doubly exploited, already submovement of the funds created by reparations and satisfaction of France and England on one side, jected to a most intense rationaliation, already war debts. Transalted into the language driven into a constantly lower condition of life.
of the and Germany or the United States on the other.
All The German bourgeoisie demands a sharp downsigns point to current world financial relation of forces, the the increased rapidity of the establishment of such a bank would result in the ward revision of the reparations payments. That is, tempo of this development.
American imperialism, already deeply involvd establishment of a hitherto unequalled domination the German industrialists and bankers, with the in the maelstrom of world economics and drawn of the countries of Europe especially such as the rehabilitation, demand a greater share of the prof inexorably deeper into the worest ineseekrosean The plan becomes even clearer when it is un its extorted from the sorely pressed German prole fight its way out at the expense of the European derstood that the only country at present in a posi tariat which up to now have been turned over in bourgeoisie, chiefly of the German bourgeoisie, tion to organize and insure the maintenance of part to the Alied bourgeoisie in reparations pay who in turn unload their burdens on the German proletariat. The German bourgeoisie, for its part, such an institution is the United States, whose ments.
is preparing the for a more violent pres.
enormous and dominating financial power would On the other hand, England, whose financial sure upon the working class.
be immediately reflected in its control of the condition is far from a desirable one, demands from policies of the bank. It is not for nothing that Germany the payment of such reparations as will field by the movement for a bloodless putsch in These preparations are reflected on the political the head of the American unofficial delegation cover at least the British debt to the United States, Germany, for the establishment of a naked dicto the conference is Morgan who sits in the center of the immense American financial tatorship. The reactionary press in Germany de web that extends over the entire capitalist der lars.
The French Shylocks demand from Germany denburg, who has, significantly enough; refused!
mands ever greater power for the President, Hin.
less. American finance capital is playing its cards dollars, that is, the French debt to the United of the fascist Stahlhelm. The same press is filled The proposal has left the European press breath payments that will run up to about four billion with a sure, firm hand, and the plan it offers is States, plus its debt to England, plus the indemnity another way of informing the bourgeoisie of it claims for the devastated war areas. Unfortun parliamentary system.
with sharp criteisms of the outworn, fruitless It is further significant Europe that the has every intention of pressately for Germany, incidentally, France still holds ing the knife more sharply to their throats in an over its head the question of evacuating the 2nd Bank, and chief German negotiator at the Experts that Hjalmar Schacht, head of the German State attempt to put an end to the uncertainty with and 3rd Rhine zones, to which Briand will not Conference, is mentioned prominently for the post which the question of reparations and debt pay pledge himself definitely unless there is a satisfac of German Mussolini. Incidentally, the German ments has hitherto beer tory financial settlement.
social democracy, nominally at the head of the gove American domination of such a bank and no Similar demands are presented by the other ern other domination is at present conceivable would former Allies; the Little Entente even goes so far actionary coup, and the repetition of a collaboraernment, is in reality clearing the road for the releave the disputed questions entirely in the hands (under French and Italian coaching, to be sure. of Wall Street. The primary function of the in as to demand that Germany pay the entire debt of tion with naked reaction to suppress the rebellious stitution, according to the announcements, would the former Entente of the Central Empires.
proletariat as was done years ago by Ebert and be to act as trustee in receiving from Germany American imperialism, further, has no inclinaSevering is entirely likely.
such annuities as may be arranged and disbursing The bourgeoisie may feel elated at the thought tion to see the Allies receiving sufficient funds that they are solving this delicate question satis.
these among the creditor nations. It also could from Germany to maintain and strengthen thefr factorily by uprooting the old Dawes plan in order cooperate with and act as an essential intermediary military and naval machinery for probable future to plant a new one. But they are blindly sowing between all the interested governments and the issuing bankers in marketing such bonds as might funds will necessarily derive from Germany, as the dragon teeth. Whether the harvest is to be be issued for the commercialization of the German expense of its industrial and financial development, in Germany will depend chiefly on the strength, annuities.
preparedness and resolution of the German Bol.
at the cashier window of the new bank would the payments on the tens of millions of dollars in sheviks.
decide on the payments to be made to the creditor nations (England, France, Belgium, Italy, etc. etc. the percentages, the frequency of payment, and Trotsky Reply to Stalin so forth, and would further be the controlling factor in any attempt to commercialize the reparaCONTINUED FROM PAGE had foreseen the ultimatum presented to us to tions payments. Should the plan be adopted on modest man and irreproachable Party comrade day, we wrote literally in the Declaration: this basis, the entire financial structure of the nathey tried to extort confirmation of their conscious Only a bureaucracy corrupted to its roots can tions involved would be in the grip of the hugely concocted and false accusations in the Ther demand this renunciation (from political activity, octopus whose head is in New York and its tenta midorian spirit. Butov answered with his heroic that is, from service to the Party and the interna.
cles everywhere else.
hunger strike which lasted fifty days and brought tional proletariat. Only contemptible renegades can give such a promise.
This is all the more so since the question of debt on his death in prison in September of this year.
and reparations payments is far from being a Violence, blows, torture physical and moral are can change nothing in these words. submit On the contrary, it is the applied to the best worker Bolsheviks for their them again to the Central Committee of the Comfocal point today of the sharpening conflicts be loyalty to the October.
munist Party of the Soviet Union and the Execu tween the imperialist powers who are vainly seek These are the general conditions which accordtive Committee of the Comintern which bear the ing a permanently satisfactory way out of the ing to the Council of the offer no ob full responsibility for the work of the quagmire of contradictions into which world cap. stacle at all to the political activity of the Oppo Each to his own part! You want to continue to italism sinks more deeply every year. On the sition in general and of myself in particular. carry out the promptings of the class forces hostile question of reparations and debts, and all that flows The miserable threat to change these conditions to the proletariat. We know our duty. We will from it, hinges the question of the so called Euro in the sense of a stricter isolation simply signifies carry it out to the end.
pean bloc against the United States, the increasthat the Stalin faction has decided to replace exile TROTSKY.
ingly strained relations between the various im by imprisonment. This decision, as is mentioned December 16, 1928, Alma Alta.
perialist powers in Europe itself, and, mainly, the above, is nothing new to me. Already adopted as question of the growing antagonism between Eng. a perspective in 1924, this decision has been gradland and the United States. On the consequences ually converted into deed over a series of stages, Article 58 of the Penal Code of the Soviet Union of the solution of the debt problem hinges to a in order to accustom the crushed and deceived employed by Stalin to imprison and exile the Opposition.
deals with the counter revolutionary activities.
large extent the question of the increasing Left Party in a round about manner to the methods of ward tendency of the German working class and Stalin, whose rule disloyalty has today matured to the perspectives of the German proletarian revo the most venomous bureaucratic dishonesty. An Opposition in England lution.
In the Declaration to the Sixth Congress of the But precisely because of all that is involved, a Comintern, where we refuted the slanders which We are glad to announce the formation of an settlement of the question by imperialism we besmirch only their authors, we made known our Opposition Group in the Communist Party of mean a settlement that will actually solve these unshakable readiness to fight within the frameGreat Britain for the first time since the begin burning problems is impossible of achievement.
work of the Party with dl the methods of Party tion and the Centrist regime. The Oppostiion in ning of the struggle between the Russian Opposi.
The establishment of the international debt clearwhich the Party suffocates, petrifies and crumbles.
the British Party consists of a number of tested Ready Now Once more we made known our unflinching readBolshevik fighters who stand completely on the iness to help the proletarian kernel of the Party THE DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE with word and deed to change the political course, sky. They have begun a struggle to present their COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL to restore the health of the Party and the Soviet viewpoint to the Party and win the British revoluBy TROTSKY With an Introduction by James Cannon power with united forces without convulsions or tionary workers to the revival of the Communist movement on the basis of Marx and Lenin THIRTY FIVE CENTS PER COPY In lots of or more 25 cents per Copy To the accusation of factional work we answered teachings.
Order now from that it can be liquidated immediately only when We send our warm fraternal greetings to our THE MILITANT Article 58. perfidiously applies to us, is recalled British comrades. The Opposition, in the face of Box 120, Madison Square Station and we are taken back into the Party again, not persecution, suppression and misrepresentation of New York, as repentant sinners but as revolutionary fighters its views, continues to grow and march forward who are not betraying their banner. As though we to its inevitable victory which It fund It was This Total contributions to date. 562. 70 Balance needed 1437. 30 Send Contributions to THE MILITANT Box 120, Madison Square Station New York City.
task.