JANUARY 25, 1941 SOCIALIST APPEAL LABOR WITH WHITE SKIN CANNOT EMANCIPATE ITSELF SKINIS BRANDED KARL MARX. By Leon Trotsky Negro Struggle This is the first anniversary of and can aid him to reach the necessary of his thoughts, skipping two and three rungs, Lenin death that Trotsky is not alive at a time. This happens whenever a particular, By ALBERT PARKER conclusions more quickly. Then his to commemorate. Trotsky wrote the answers are entirely unexpected and an conclusion is all too clear to him, is of great following article shortly after Lenin Lenin and the Negroes nihilating in their simplicity. Pointblank practical urgency and the audience must become death. during Trotsky convalescence he lays bare a situation which according acquainted with it as quickly as possible. But Those who are interested in the struggle of from a serious illness. Trotsky article to all expectations, he should have sought now he has sensed that the listeners cannot the Negro people for full equality have special was published in Moscow in 1924 by keep up with him, that the bond between him reason to remember Lenin on this anniversary to camouflage. The Mensheviks went the State Publishing House, as part of and the audience has been disrupted. He imof his death, through this experience more than once volume. On Lenin, Materials for a For Lenin, more than any other man of our Biographer.
during the initial period of the revolution mediately takes himself in hand and with a single when charges of violations of democracy leep descendis in order to begin his ascent anew time, contributed toward an understanding and still bad a ring of novelty. Our news. but this time with a more tranquil and measured solution of the problems facing the Negro people. After the October revolution many papers have been shut down! Of course! stride. The voice itself, free of any extra strain, And his contributions were not only in a general photographs of Lenin were taken and But unfortunately not all of them as yet. becomes altered and subtly persuasive. The consense, but in a specific sense as well; not only movies were also made. His voice was They will all be shut down presently. The struction of the speech naturally suffers from on a national, but on a world scale; not only recorded on the phonograph. His speeches in the sphere of general politics, but in the indictatorship of the proletariat will destroy this duplication. But is a speech designed for were transcribed by stenographers and at its very roots this shameful traffic in its construction? Is there any worth while logic ternal sphere of the revolutionary movement. were then published. All the elements of bourgeois opium! The speaker has in a speech other than the logic which compels It is the general program of Leninism which Vladimir Tlyich are thus available. But straightened up. Both hands are in the action. will guide the workers, colored and white to their they remain only the elements. The livvictory over the capitalist system and put an end ing personality consists of the unrepropockets. There is not even a hint of posAnd when the orator arrives for a second to its wars, fascism. unemployment, racial dising, in the voice not a trace of oratorical time at his conclusion, this time bringing all his ducible and always dynamic combination modulation instead the entire figure, the crimination. Lenin taught that the workers must of these elements.
listeners along, not losing a single one on the angle of the head, the compressed lips.
take power away from the thell way, a rejoicing at the satisfactory culmination am trying to evoke Lenin in my mind the cheek bone the slightly hoarse timpower to hire and fire, their power to control the the intense labor of the collective mind with a fresh eye and fresh car, as if seebre of the voice all radiate an indomit physically felt in the hall. It remains to tap the factories and discriminate against Negroes in hiring and hearing him on the platform for able confidence in his correctness and his conclusion twice or thrice more in order to reining and classification of work: take away their the first time, and see a strong, pliant truth. If you want to fight, then, come control of the armed forces through their merforce it; give it a simple, lucid and pictorial exfigure of medium height and hear an on, let really fight.
Scenary hirelings, the officer caste, whom they train pression for memory sake; and then it is perto Jim Crow the Negro: take away their control even, fluent voice speaking very rapidly, Whenever the speaker lashes out not at missible to take a breathing speli, joke and laugh with a slight lisp, without interruptions, of the press, the schools, the church, the movies, an enemy but at one of his own. it can a little, so that the collective mind is better able almost without a pause and, in the initial all of which they use to perpetuate the system be felt both in the gestures and the voice. in the interim to absorb its new conquest.
stages, without any special inflection.
of white supremacy, and thus keep white and The most frenzied attack in these cases Lenin oratorical humor is as simple as all colored workers divided and the bosses in power.
The introductory phrases are, as a rule.
preserves the character of bringing to his other devices, if it is possible to speak of Workers, said Lenin, take power into your own general, the tone is that of probing; the reason. Occasionally the speakers voica devices in this connection. In Lenin speeches hands. Set up your own government, run it yourspeaker entire figure seems not to have breaks off on a high note. This happens there is no self sufficient wit, nor word play but selves in your own interests. That is the only found its cquilibrium as yet; the gesture whenever he swoops down on a friend. there is the joke a salty, accessible to the masway to do away with war, unemployment, Tactal has yet to take shape, the eyes sçem to exposes him, tries to put him to shame.
ses. in the real sense of the term, a folk joke.
and national divisions.
gaze inwardly; the features of the face proves that the opponent understands exIf there is nothing too alarming about the poliAnd the Soviet Union of Lenin time showed appear sullen and even exasperated the actly nothing and is unable to adduce so tical situation, if the audience is predominantly that this was true that it was only under workers idea is probing for an approach to the much as a scintilla in support of his ob his own then the speaker is not averse to a jections. It is on these exactly nothings audience. This introductory phase lasts power that the many different racial and maJittle horse play in passing. The audience hearttional groups of that country could live together for a longer or shorter period of time, and scintillas that the voice now and ily welcomes the sly simple adage, the good depending upon the audience, the topic, then rises to a falsetto and breaks off, in pence and equality.
natured merciless characterization, sensing that Tenin greatest contribution in this field was the speaker mood. But now the speaker and this unexpectedly invests the angriest this, too, is intended not as a flourish but to serve has found the trail. The theme begins to tirade with a semblance of good nature.
in connection with the colonial and national ques.
the self same goal.
tion, that is, the solution of the world Negro unfold. The upper part of his body tilts forThe speaker has completely thought out ward, the thumbs slide under the armpits problem.
When the speaker is about to jest. the lower his idea in advance down to the ultimate, into the vest. And this twofold movement immediately back a little, retreats a few short paces, as if to make part of his face becomes more prominent, espractical conclusion the idea, but not the presentation, pecially the mouth capable of infectious laughtWhat Lenin Taught Us causes the head and the hands to jut forward. The room for a running start and either ironically, or with not the form of presentation, with the exception, perer. The lines of forehead and skull seem to soften, In his famous theses on this task, adopted at head does not in and of itself, seem large on this well a look of despair shrugs his steep shoulders, spreads haps of the most succinct, most pertinent and jaciest the eyes stop boring like gimlets and twinkle the Second Congress of the Third International, knit, strong, not tall and rhythmic body. But the fore his hands with the thumbs expressively extended. He expressions and coined words which thereupon enter with a merry light, the lisp becomes more prohe analyzed the fallure of the radical movements head and the ridges on the bald skull appear enormous. always prefaces a refutation by condemning his op into the political life of the party and of the country The hands are very agile but not fidgety or nervous.
nounced the intensity of the virile idea is of the past to understand this problem. The ponent, deriding or disgracing him depending on the as the ringing medium of exchange. The construction softened with a love for living and humaneness.
The wrists are broad, chunky. plebian. strong. They, Second International failed to appreciate the im.
opponent and the circumstances. It is as if the listener of the sentences is as a rule massive, clause accumulportance of the colonial question. For them the like the entire body, denote dependability and virile were forewarned what sort of proof to expect, and how ates on clause like geological strata, or on the contrary, In Lenin speeches, as in all his work, the world did not exist outside of Europe, gocd nature. Before this can be perceived. however, They to attune his mind. Then the logical offensive is outstanding trait is purposefulness. The speaker a clause imbeds itself in the previous one. These conthe speaker must catch fire internally, as he exposes launched. The left hand either seeks out again the could not see the necessity of co ordinating the structions are a trial to the stenographers, and then to is not engaged in constructing a speech but in vest, or more frequently the trouser pocket. The right an opponent cunning ruse, or succeeds himself in laythe editors. But through these massive phrases the in guiding toward a specific conclusion action. He revolutionary movement of Europe with those in ing a trap. Then from beneath the mighty canopy of the non European countries. Instead of giving accompanies the logic of the exposition and beats off tense and imperious idea cuts a strong and reliable approaches his audience in diverse ways; he exforehead and skull the Leninist eyes appear (which moral and material help to the revolutionary its rhythm. When ever necessary, the left hand lends highway for itselt.
plains, he reasons, he shames, he jokes, again he movement in the colonies, the members of the were just barely caught by a lucky photograph taken assistance. The speaker heads toward his audience, Is it really true that the speaker is a profoundly reasons and once again explains. What unifies Second International themselves became imperin 1919. Even an indifferent listener, catching this strides to the very edge of the platform, leans forward his speech is not a formal plan but a clear, prac.
educated Marxist, a theoretician and an economist, a glance for the first time will become on guard and sit ialists.
and with rounded gestures of his hands nroulds his man of enormous erudition? Why, it seems, at least tical goal, rigidly delineated for the current words. This means that the central idea, the main point every now and then, that some extraordinary self period, which must imbed itself in the consciousLenin, pointed out that as long as the child up in expectation. In such moments the angular cheek bones were illumined and softened by a profoundly of the entire speech has been reached, taught man is speaking, who arrived at these conclu mess of the audience as a splinter enters the talists in the imperialist countries could squeeze shrewd indulgence, behind which could be sensed a vast If opponents are present in the audience, the speak sions through his own efforts, pondered all this in his flesh. His humor is likewise subordinated to this.
and bleed super profits out of the natives in the knowledge of men, of inter relationships and situations er is greeted from time to time with critical or hostile own brain, in his own way, without any scientific equip. The joke is utilitarian. The colorful newly coined colonies, they would be strong enough at home. down to nethermost subsoil. The lower part of his heckling. Nine limes out o of ten these remain unanswered ment, without a scientific terminology and is now pre word has its practical purpose: to spur on some, to resist the workers and remain in power and face with its reddish gray growth seemed to remain that consequently, the workers in these advanced in the shadows. The voica became softer, more flexible The speaker intends to say what he has to say: senting it in his own manner. Why? Because the speak.
to curb others. Among these are Khvostism (tailsay it to those whom he is addressing; in whatever way er has thought out the problem not only for himself endism) and peredyshka (breathing spell. and countries must help and strengthen the struggles and at times slyly ingratiating.
he feels it must be said. He is not to be sidetracked by but also for the mass, he has carried his mind through Smychka (alliance with the peasantry) and of the colonies against their joint enemy and op But now the speaker bringing up a possible ob chance remarks. Hasty wit is alien to his concentrated the experience of the masses and has completely re drachka (inner party squabble) and komchvanpressor, the imperialists.
jection of an opponent or citing a vicious quotation thought. Following hostile exclamations his voice only. moved from his presentation the theoretical scaffold stvo (communist snobbery) and scores of others It was Lenin teachings, therefore, which de from an enemy article. Before he proceeds to analyze becomes more harsh, his sentences more compact and ing, which he had himself utilized when first approch which have not been perpetuated. Before he gets veloped the comradely attitude of the revolution the hostile idea, he gives you to understand that the aggressive, the formulations grow sharper. the ges ing the problem.
to such a word the speaker circles around as if ary workers toward the millions of oppressed col. objection is groundless, superficial or false. He disen tures more abrupt! He catches up the hostile heckle It so happens, by the way, that on occasion in search of a suitable spot. Once that is located ored peoples throughout the world, and made them gages his fingers from behind the west, tilts his body only if it. coincides with the general trend of his ideas, the speaker ascends too swiftly on the ladder he affixes the nail, gauges the distance properly, understand the necessity of assisting in every way takes a full swing and brings the hammer down the struggle of the colored peoples for indepen.
on the head once, twice, ten times until the nail dence.
is driven in so firmly that it becomes diffcult to dislodge it once the necessity for it no longer Stalin and the Negroes exists. When that occasion arises, Lenin will, utThe Communist International, which has de tering an adage, have to tap this nail from the generated under Stalin from the vanguard of the right and from the left in order to loosen it, and revolution to the watchdog of the bureaucrats in By FELIX MORROW thing one learns in approching tives. It is from 1910 that the became clear: nor even in 1918! tear it out and cast it into discard among the the Kremlin, still pretends to honor the memory Lenin died on January 21, 1924, at the age of 54. He Lenin but more likely, the last German left begins. In all this Lenin called the revolutionary archives to the great sorrow of those who had and carry out the teachings of Lenin. There is left behind him the most gigantic heritage ever bequeathed by Especially difficult to grasp is it they saw more clearly than Le party Jacobins bound up with grown accustomed to it.
no better yardstick for measuring the hypocrisy one man. Nor is that heritage only in the Soviet Union and in for those who merely read Lentn nin, whose Illusions concerning the working class but separate But now the speech draws to its conclusion.
the Stalinists than contrasting their practice his books and the minds of revolutionists: it is also in the minds and do not try to carry out his Kautsky were not shaken untii and apart from it in their own The balance sheet has been taken, the concluthe actual life of the the war began and hearts of hundreds of millions of people in the capitalist theories organizatio The man left on the colonial question with Lenin teachings.
revolutionary party. On the other The German lett was equal to defined it entirely differently: in sions have been driven home securely. The speakDuring the period 1935 39, when they were world whom one would not ordinarily call revolutionists.
hand, workers who read but little the Bolsheviks in revolutionary Luxembourg words the party was er looks like a worker who is tired but whose Yes, there are hundreds of millions under capitalist rulers but who devote their lives to the courage in the struggle against the self movement of the workwooing the democratie imperialists to get a pact job has been completed. From time to time he with Stalin, they dropped the colonial peoples who know that Lenin was opposed to the World War and brand revolutionary party indicate often the imperialism war. As a matter ing class. In other words, in passes his hand over the naked skull beaded with ed as traitors to the working class those socialists who sup a profound understanding of Le of historical fact, the most inspir 1904, 1910, 1914, 1918, she admonoverboard. Instead of giving moral and material perspiration. The voice loses its intensity like a help. they ignored or sabotaged the struggles in ported it: that he and Trotsky culture at stake. After this war, Lenin idea of the party is prac three years of the war was Liebership with the threat. The workfire dying down. The speech may now be con the colonies, because they wanted to get the food successfully led the October re lo a series of successful revolutical, it trorks: for serious revo knecbt May Day speech of 1916. ing class will overrule you. In cluded. But one need not expect a peroration, will of the capitalists who oppress these colonies.
volution and founded the Sovtions do not occur, more wars lutionists it becomes the only come Nether Lenin nor Trotsky stead, however, the workers, even without which it would seem hardly possible to In the quotation above, Lenin used the strongest iet Union as a workers state. will follow the fairy tale of a ceivable method of functioning in though he had been President of when gritting their teeth, followleave the platform. Others could not do it, but terms in denouncing the Second International for And without being able to war to end all wars is a hollow the working class: they find it the Petersburg Soviet in 1905) ed the leaders, e. the party Lenin gan. He does not conclude his speech oraformulate it, these hundreds of and pernicious fairy tale. And so hard to imagine why all real re were as widely known or beloved only through another party could If we understand this, if we do it, then we shall doing this. We can be sure that his language torically. He finishes his work and puts a period.
millions know that the socialist. It has come to pass. The workers volutionists did not hit vpon Le among the great masses as were the workers be led in the correct would have been no more gentle about Stalin shipping of oil to Italy during the invasion of revolution led by Lenin put an did not achieve a series of suc nin idea of the party. Liebknecht and Luxembourg. path; that party did not exist, surely conquer. such, not unfrequently, is the end to the first World War: in cessful revolutions and are pay.
Ethiopia.
Yet Lenin and Trotsky made thanks to the terrible error of the closing phrase. Or, This is what we must set the midst of the hopelessness of ing the price of that failure. That WHY THE GERMAN the revolution, while Karl and German left. But the Bolsheviks as our goal, not in Words but in action. And For All Races!
the second World War they are price includes the Stalinist dege. REVOLUTION PÄILED Rosa and their comrades of Spar had built their party, and by it some times, simply: This is all wanted to say Yet the terrible record of his tacus were without representation led the Russian masses to victory hoping for another Lenin to lend neration of the isolated USSR.
Just as Lenin clarified the attitude of the rethem in putting an end to this Say chat is. Those who flat tory tells us that there were great of any kind in the first German to you. And nothing more. And such a concluvolutionary movement toward the colonial people, war.
tered the working class and en revolutionists who failed to grasp Let ts keep clearly in our were bitterly excoriated by Lenin. of that, led into the abyss revolu. diers Councils (soviets) and were creeps into Luxembourg writso did he revolutionize its attitude toward the Congress of the Workers and Sol note of asperity of irritation sion is in complete harmony, with the nature of dowed it with all possible virtues Lenin conception and, because and harshness toward the masses, Lenin eloquence and with Lenin own nature, colored people in the capitalist countries. Here thoughts these hundreds of mil: He shocked the sentimental lov. tions which had every objective ker officers, murdered with impunity by Jun.
and it in no way chills the audience. On the is what he said on it in the Statutes, adopted by lions of the people as we comcontrary, it is precisely after such an ineffecout of their possibility of success.
Why! Superficialings during the war. She can the Communist International Second Congress. memorate the 17th anniversary of 18 of tbe people funda man revolution of 1918 was tried to find the explanation in ness. Lenin, who never minced thing that Lenin gave in his speech, and bursts The Ger: bistorians and anti Leninists have speak of them as having sue tive. drab ending that the audience seems.
cumbed to the chauvinistic mad The Communist International once forever Lenin passing.
once again to grasp in a single eruption every mental proposition that the work thrown back because Karl Lled the difference between Russian breaks with the traditions of the Second Interna to Lenin is no empty ritual that ing class by itself could develop Knecht and Rosa Luxembours and German conditions. The words nevertheless could never into stormy, grateful, ecstatic applause.
tional which in reality only recognized the white kind of mummery we leave to no further than trade unionism and their associates, Leo Jogis truth is quite simple. The Gewrite like that. That was pre those who keep the dried mummy revolutionary socialism is brought ches, Frank Mehring and Clara man left did not begin to build tion of the working class and its race. The Communist International makes it its of Lenin on display in Moscow. to the working class from out. Zetkin) failed to understand the a party in 1904, when Luxem relation to its parties. He could order to escape the inevitable. His head is slightly But having quickly picked up his slips of task to emancipate the workers of the entire paper Lenin has already left the platform in worid. The ranks of the Communist International work. We have the profound res of insisting that the working ary party. make this statement of the official leadership, nor dia pour vitriol on the reformist and drawn into his shoulders, chin down, the eyes fraternally unites men of all colors: white, yel.
low, and black the tollers of the entire world. the minds and hearts of those the leadership of a revolutionary that of our German. comrades, who party in 1910, when she and Lieb masses. Had he not said that the withdrawn behind the brows, the moustache This was of especial significance for us here in party.
Der Lenin in their own way. We party and the working class as ponder the causes of the defeat ofsky degeneration; nor did they He was not one to scold the work bristling almost angrily on an upper lip which All attempts to define the have had many bitter years to knecht correctly estimated Kaut. Working class would get nowhere the United States, where the Negro people, who without a revolutionary party?
curls upward in dissatisfaction. The applause form so large a proportion of the exploited popu: Lenin have said to them today resisted as the root of all evil. He other causes they trace back to full scope of that degeneration theirs but their leaders. Out of mounts wave upon wave. Long Li. Lenin.
lation, had been completely overlooked or only Leader. Ilyich. The never to be duplicated And equally important: What began this fight in 1903 as a Rus the mistaken notion of the role head shimmers in the electric light amid the formally recognized in the propaganda and organ would Lenin have learned from sian struggle; after 1914 he con of the party held by the German izational work of the Socialist Party, in much them today? For Lenin could ducted a world wide his thorough realism, therefore, wild waves of applause. And when it seems that struggle lett. Max Shachtman, for instance flowed his deep faith in the mass. the whirlwind of enthusiasm has reached its the same way that its parent body, the Second teach so richly precisely because As early as 1904 Rosa Luxem in New International, May, 1938. es: Give them revolutionary leadInternational, had treated the colonial question he learned so fully from the against it.
This was Lenin secret wea bourg saw that the leadership of the German comrades appropria ership and they will storm the highest intensity, suddenly through the roar the tumult and the handclaps, some youthful, shrill, It is necessary to support the movement for overthrow their oppressors.
masses whom he taught how to pon. his profoundly original con the German Social Democratic tely answered him. New Interna heavens.
happy and ecstatie voice cuts like a siren through real equality among the American Negroes, Lenin ception of the revolutionary par party were conservatives and not tional, February, 1939. The reader That, then, would be the first a storm: Long Live Ilyich! And somewhere from Say what is. Lenin never lied ty. It is Lenin greatest contribu revolutionists: as early as 1910, interested in the roots of Shacht. thing that Lenin would tell the pointed out in the theses on the colonial question, the profoundest, palpitating innermost depths of and thereby he opened the eyes of the American to or flattered the masses. In 1941 tion to revolutionary theory and she and Liebknecht saw that Kaut man later degeneration will find thinking workers: Help the re as in 1914 he would have told action.
sky, leader of the center wing them, in part, in his fallure to volutionists to build the vanguard solidarity, love and enthusiasm a veritable cyrevolutionists to the unbreakable connection be them the truth. Lenin wrote on Lenin conception of the parts of the party and the international understand the fundamental die party. Join them in building it.
clone rises in answer, a universal, indivisible rooftween the struggle of the Negroes for equality November 1, 1914: Imperialism is not easy to gragd in all its theorist of socialism, was made terence between the party concep That comes first. All other things) splitting shriek shout: LONG LIVE LENINI and the struggle for the social revolution. has placed the fate of European ramifications; it is not the first of the same stuff as the conservations of Lenin and Luxembourg. follow.
April, 1924 Lenin Secret Weapon Our Memorial wits by setting