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Page THE MILITANT July 1, 192. Letter on the Capitulators THE PROGRESSIVES MEET to capitalist police of all Europe!
One thing is clear: we have the perspective before us of long stubborn struggle and work of education. We must renew our ranks. Let Dear Friend: stoop to such triviality? Through the those withdraw who are not strong enough for this Some of them, having wandered and waThe latest press despatches tell of a journey of official press agency of the Soviet Union. Ed. work.
Preobrazhensky to Moscow for negotiations with the the Stalinists are propagating in the bourgeois press vered, will come back to us. And we by then will Central Committee. There is not the slightest doubt of the whole world a monstrous lie and slander against be stronger. We must prepare to replace them in the spirit of adamantine Bolshevik irreconcilibility.
that these capitulators and compromisers of the third us, gradually preparing a justification for measAnd we must not dare Along with the work among the masses on the basis draft will be made fools of. Of what participation in ures of blood repression.
the Party different from that of Zinoviev are they tell the truth about ourselves in that same press. of our platform, we must deepen our work of eduyouth, not sparing our strength even to dreaming? Branded as a capitulator, Zinoviev sits The Stalinists dicker with the bourgeois police and cating We need a deepened propaganda in silence, afraid to move, not knowing what to with the reactionary diplomats to prevent our admis. win one person.
Every serious Bolshevik ought expect.
They compel the Norwegian on a world scale.
We, meanwhile, are actively, though sion into one country.
slowly, preparing the future, forming the cadres of Communists together with the reaction to destroy them from day to day into the sphere of the fundato have around him several young people, leading They compel the official Comyoung Bolsheviks. What position between us and the right of asylum.
the Zinovievists do the new capitulators expect to munist press to accompany this reactionary police mental questions of Marxism and the international occupy? It is doubtful if they themselves have any work with wild persecution and slander, which revolution. TROTSKY.
clear idea of that. They have the hope that Yaro creeps into the pages of the whole bourgeois press. Constantinople, May 23, 1929.
slavsky will purge their brains, after which they wil! And we must modestly and sweetly keep silent, IN THE NEXT ISSUE: letter just re.
have to crawl out of the swamp onto a clean spot, by obedient to a resolution of the year 1905 which was ceived from comrade Trotsky on Radek and the adapted to the conditions of a revolutionary Party, no means increasing their authority.
Opposition. dealing also with the reply of They assert that the disagreements have almost and not to the reactionary work of a Thermidorian comrade Trotsky written in exile at Alma Ata to disappeared. How do they explain the rabid char bureaucracy attacking us in sacred union with the the thesis of Radek.
acter of the repressions? Exile, hard labor prisons for Bolsheviks in the absence of very deep and irreconciliable disagreements, could only be the result of a completely unprincipled bureaucratic banditism. That is just the policy of the Stalinists, This Conference for Progressive Labor Action if you take the point of view of Radek and others.
But what about the movement they express which But in that case, how do they dare murmur of was more a sympton of the processes at work than is indubitably a growing one. this is the question.
union with these political bandits who, grounds in principle, are imprisoning our comrades tbroneper single king of trade union reaction or be steered away from reformist stultification into the in hard labor prisons condemning them ban even upset the swivel chair of any of its lower path of class struggle and the influence of the revolmercenaries. Nevertheless it has an importance for utionaries expanded? In our opinion it would be a ishment, and sometimes to death?
those who examine the happenings of today in the grave error for the revolutionaries to stand aloof WHAT CAPITULATION MEANS.
light of the dynamic forces making for future changes from it. As the movement takes shape locally and in We never characterized the Stalinists so merci. that is to say, for the Marxists. Not even a confab separate unions the Communists should penetrate it lessly and annihilatingly as Radek does, against his of progressive windjammers happens without cause, and force it to the left. The fact that the progressive will, as a result of the mere fact that he has got The development of the new progressive movement is leaders do not want this help and that the socialist lost in this forest of three trees, crawls out, falls following the line of the analysis and forecast of our party elements especially will try by all means to preagain, scrambles away, tries to get up, and falls Platform just as precisely as it is confuting the vent it, is no serious argument against such a tactic.
down again. We have thought, and we still think, Party Convention theses of both groups of the squab This attitude of the progressive leaders only facilitates that the Stalinists are not unthinking political ban bling bureaucrats which were concerned only with the exposure of their fraudulant claims before the dits, for they have profound and principled reasons the attempt to adapt themselves to the latest zig zag workers and helps to prepare the ground for the confor their merciless persecution of us. It is a poor of Stalin Centrism in the Comintern rather than with solidation of a more aggresive leadership and the statesman who takes a political line in short frag an analysis of the actualities of the American move strengthening of the position of the revolutionary ments, not asking himself what elements are carrying ment and inferences proceeding from such an elements.
out that line and for what reasons. Having got analysis.
FALSE TACTICS OF THE PARTY into an economic blind alley, the Stalinist cadres, The holding of the progressive conference and the writting their teeth, are carrying out a left zig zag, attempt to give the movement a national form and an at the moverment from the sidelines of isolation. Such Their game is only aided by the tactic of barking Which by force of circumstances and of the struggle organizing center are evidence that the half conscious a course which the Party is now following is not only itself has carried them much farther to the left than revolt in the labor ranks against the paralyzing rule wrong and futile from a tactical standpoint. It is a they wished. Nine tenths of those cadres are of the black reactionaries is growing. The conference direct repudiation of the tacties elaborated by the dreaming of getting back at the first opportunity was above all an expression of this movement com Second, Third and Fourth Congresses of the Comand hate us mortally exactly because by our uncom not understand it, who try to dispose of the whole out the years of its growth and progress.
upon a more healthy. normal. national line, below. This is the outstanding fact, and those who do munist International and applied in practice throughcapitulation of the Opposition would mean: a) con misrepresentation the Daily Worker contribution this false path today. Our Party, like the other secUnfortunately the Official Communist Party is on demning ourselves to a Zinovievist vegetable exist. will never be able to undertsand anything. First of tions of the is being forced into all kinds of ence nature knows no more shameful thing, and all it is necessary to see and understand the move ultra left idiocies to make good for the crimes of b) an immediate swerving of the Stalinists to the ment from below and then seek the tactic whereby Stalin opportunism in the Anglo Russian Committee right.
its development along the line of effective struggle and the menshevik policy in the Chinese revolution.
IJ. The question of the Comintern does not and revolutionary understanding may be facilitated. The present policy of having nothing to do with the in the least interest the advocates of capitulation in SOCIALISTS AT THE CONFERENCE progressives is just as wrong as the game of subone country. The national socialistic program of The Socialists appeared at the conference as the ordinating everything to them and supporting them They rethe Comintern worries them very little.
concile themselves with light hearts to the policy of directing element. discreetly behind the scenes for without criticism which was played until a short time adventurism which, in Berlin as in Canton, is design the most part, it is true, but more or less in charge ago. The rabid and senseless leftism of today resulted ed to restore the revolutionary reputation of of things and working like a well organized steering from the opportunism of yesterday and will be Centrism. Meanwhile the continued persecution of committee. Whenever the proceedings lagged or the followed tomorrow by another swing to the rights the Opposition is hopelessly decomposing the cadres pre aranged program encountered obstacles. This This is Stalinist Politics.
The catastrophic results of the current infantilism Everything is being trampled also is an important fact. The emergence of those and defiled by the boot of bureaucratism. How shall heroes with paper swords in their hands on the field are already foreshadowed in the growing isolation of we heal this affliction? It is quite simple: capitu against Green, Woll and Company, after years of the Party and the weakening of its position. The late before that same boot!
III. revolution is a mighty devourer of change in the appearence of things. They are being policy, perhaps for years to come. The policy of the people. In the older generation there is an immense blown to the front by the wind of a new movement in Party is directly against the interests of the unfolde The trend of events will percentage of devastated souls among the ruling munist Party only clear the way for them and there make this all too clear as it is already clear to those Opposition. The reaction is in full course in the by help to prevent the new movement from developing who apply the criteria of Leninist tactics.
PLAIN TALK NEEDED Party and the Comintern, reflecting the general its real implications of struggle. The new line of in. or swing of class forces on a world scale. In such the socialists serves to strengthen their position just circumstances withdrawals and capitulations inevi as the new line of the Communists serves to weaken Jackey like acquiesence in them has nothing in com tably stand on the order of the day. Bolshevism and isolate them. These simple and obvious faets stand mon with revolutionary duty. Such an attitude befits only religious cretins who register approval of all from 1907 to 1910, and again from 1914 to 1917, out above a bale of theses.
passed through a whole series of such departures, not ahead of the workers movement it seeks to re or soul less place hunters on the make. Fewer decrees, The Conference for Progressive Labor Action is decrees from above automatically and in advance, Only by way of such self cleansings and self clari present but behind it. The movement has impulses fewer hypocritical endorsements and confessions, Tess. fyings could it have grown and strengthened for this spirit and hoid back the struggles. The atmos. plain outspoken talk this is what the Communist more honest thought and the October victory.
ened by the withdrawal of comrades, even those with phere of their conferences was thick with caution, movement and the whole radical workers movement Limidity and fear. The solemn warning of Norman of America needs.
the most respected names. By the example of Thomas that the demand for a labor party is 100 It is now time to check the new line of phrase.
their waverings we will teach steadfastness to the radical for the labor men although he himself of mongering leftism against experience and draw the young THE USE OF THE BOURGEOIS PRESS.
by his socialist confreres is an indication of the wing of the Party must foresee the cumulative harm IV. What a pitiful and cowardly falsity is the rabbit like boldness of these latter day warriors which a persistence in this course will bring and Yes yes of these new capitulators to Yaroslavsky against reaction.
begin now a stubborn and determined fight to change it. An honest, conscientious fight for Leninist policy and company, in regard to the impermissibility of ROLE OF PROGRESSIVE LEADERS employing the bourgeois press. Was it necessary to on a single important question, such as the trade union They aim to strike a balance between the awaken: question, will inevitably lead its protagonists into the ing workers and the officialdom which will general communist struggle against the whole regime THE MILITANT reconcile their co existence and leave a dignified of bureaucratic centrism.
place for themselves as leaders of a sort. It is this fight and the swifter its tempo the sooner will the The broader the scope of Published twice a month by the Communist League their policy to be radical enough in talk to catch the errors be corrected and the Communist ranks he of America (Opposition)
sentiment of the discontented worker, and to be con united on the line of Leninism.
Address all mail to: Box 120, Madison Square servative and cowardly enough in action to dodge any Station, New York, real clash with the reactionaries. The removal of Publisher address at 332 East 18th Street Calhoun, himself a pink hued liberal confusionist, New York, from the teaching staff of Brookwood College, on the NOTE Subscription rate: 00 per year. Foreign, 50 heels of the conference, was meant to mollify Wol The publication of the report sent in by Comrade Бc. per copy Bundle rates, 3c. per copy. and Green and convince them that the Muste pro Konikov of the shoe strike situation in Boston has been Associate Editors: gressives do not really mean to fight them. unavoidably delayed on account of the conference maEditor Martin Abern In all this the progressives run true to form. Such terial. Comrade Celia Cooperstein is active on the James Cannon Max Shachtman contradiction between words and deeds, such conExecutive Strike Committee. Comrado Cooperstein Maurice Spector fusion and cowardice, are the very essence of pro and Comrade Kleinfield of Chelsea have been active as pickets. The Stalinites have followed their usual VOL. II.
JULY 1, 1929 No. 11. gressivism in its leading staff. All this should be known in advance and taken for granted by Com tactics of first trying to get merk untrol of the Entered as second class mail matter November 28, munists. It is only those who have placed too much movement and when the to disrupt it.
1928, at Post Office at the act confidence in th ho will suffer from disapoint Details of the lessor follow in next issne.
of Mount TO