THE COMMUNIST Significant Letter (THE LETTER OF RUTGERS TO MARTENS)
Attorney General Palmer, who, in his anxiety to recognition had to be the pressure from the become President of the United States, leaves no workers.
stone unturned, made public recently, a copy of All your hope either on small bourgeois india letter from Rutgers, a member of the Exviduals or parties like the artistic and ecutive Committee of the Amsterdam Bureau of The Third Communist International to Marpolitical pacifists and middlemen is not only tens. the head of the Russian Soviet Bureau in unfounded but contrary to well established tacAmerica This copy came into his hands through tics. You will reply that it was not at all insome mysterious, police provocateur means.
possible that United States should make peace In view of the fact that the contents of this letter ceased to be a secret, having become Im for capitalistic reasons without any pressure from mediately upon Palmer announcement the properthe workers, and you may even have felt that Communist ty of the whole bourgeois press, in a certain situation an (insufficient) pressure deems it permissable and necessary to break the to force things was detrimental to a capitalist wall of silence on this question, strictly observed by it until now, and to bring this letter to the peace.
This, however, consider opportunism attention of the comrades. This is all the more of the worst kind.
necessary because some previous letters from In the first place it is childish to think that Russia, dealing with the same question in a someif world political considerations caused the what different light more favorable to Comrade Martens were rather willingly and quickly made United States to make peace your efforts could public both by Comrade Martens himself and by be of any considerable influence. In such a other official and semi official and entirely unsituation your half baked radicals would not need official sources of the Soviet Bureau.
your help to support and glorify Wilson, and It is not altogether out of place to mention here that not only some letters defending the position it would be your duty as see it, not to canvas of Comrade Martens, but the whole question in Senators, etc. but to mobilize whatever forces its entirety as to the disagreements between Comthere are among the workers to influence the rade Martens and the revolutionary Socialist orkind of peace and still more to use the situation ganizations in America, long ago, with the able for strenghtening the American movement, beassistance of Comrade Weinstein, became the property of the street. This question was treated cause even in such a case. peace for purely and commented upon by everybody not only in capitalist reasons) result of peace depends upon the pages of the slanderous sheet The Socialist the force of Labor all over the world. an organ of Gerber, Waldman, Tuvim and Co. and New York Pravda (Russian organ of Wein Peace may even result in killing the revostein and Co. but even in the pages of the lution temporarily, if this is the signal for the bourgeois press and in various Government Senworld proletariat to stop whatever action is under ate. Lusk and other committees way, for peace means, of course, simply another Only the Communist. Novy Mir and other Comform of fighting the Soviet Republic to the munist organs consistently maintained silence, bebitter end, with all crimes imaginable.
cause their position on this question was such that they could not deal with this question openly All kinds of neutral diplomatic position looks in the only dignified way on principle and not to be an impossibility and a failure, although the merely in sinndering of personalities without risking the accusation of divulgins secrets of the appearance might have to be guarded for utilitSoviet Bureau or carrying on counter revolut arian reasons.
But understand that you did ionery propaganda. Now that the question is not stick to this position of neutrality and gave no longer a secret further silence would have no your sympathies decidedly more to the Cenjustification whatever.
trists with animosity toward the will. For the present we will limit our article to the reprint of Comrade Rutgers letter with the neces. appreciate to learn more about the leading prinsars comment.
ciples actuating you in these unfortunate conThis letter is all the more Interesting because flicts with our most consequent comrades. A1its author a noted worker in the International though your direct relation is with the Soviet Communist movement, a recent co worker with Comrade Leon Trotsky in America and together Government, the matter involved no doubt touches with whom he founded the Class Struggle, the the interests of the Communist International.
first revolutionary Socialist magazine in English With best greetings and wishes, yours for the published in this country, and who later occupied a responsible position in Soviet Russia under the Soviet Government not only knew Comrade Mar(Signature of Comrade Rutgers follows. tens personally but was Instrumental in his apThe above letter is the final act in the conflict pointment as the head of the Bureau.
that has been brewing for a long time between It is unnecessary to add that in this letter, Comrade Martens and the revolutionary organizaComrade Rutgers expresses not his personal opinion tions in America, a conflict which began from the but the opinions prevalent in the official bodies first day of the appointment of Comrade Marten of the Communist International: Tot only the official and responsible position of Comrade Rutas Soviet representative and which during the early stages was confined to differences between kers in the Communist International but, as the reader will see further. a resolution on this and Comrade Martens and Russian revolutionary Socallied subjects passed at the recent conference ialist organizations in this country and which of the Amsterdam Bureau supports this contention.
later developed into a great struggle on principle of supreme importance. Into this struggle were gradually drawn all Left Wing Socialist and later The following is the letter of Comrade Rutgers, Communist organizations of America, this was the as it appeared in the World of April 15th very first source of disagreement and friction with(second morning edition. in the Left Wins of the American Socialist Party The Letter of Comrade Rutgers.
and indirectly, became one of the reason of its splitting into Communist and Centrist camps. From your activities it was clearly demonThe substance of the struggle on principle, strated that you consider commercial represen which, during the whole year agitated the ranks tation and efforts for recognition paramount. of the Russian Communist Federations and the Chicherin and other comrades agreed with this Communist Party of America is well known to our position. Although in nominating you, your comrades: it is a question of relations between the organs of proletarion dictatorship Soviet Governcapacity as engineer was not even mentioned or ment institutions and the Communist International thought of. Your supposed clear conception of with its organy and branches in the various coununcompromising Communist principles decided tries the spiritual leader and inspirer of the revothat you and not Weinstein was preferable.
lutionary proletariat, and which first placed before As far as commercial relations go, had them, as an immidiate practical slogan, the very idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
the good time of my life, when you started What should be these relations? Comrade Rutoff rattling with millions and arousing some at gers in his leter says: For decidedly side with tention and some profit lust. As a beginning Nic. Hourwich. Let us see how this point of it was not a bad stunt but in my opinion you view way formulated.
went much too far and were carried away by More than a year ago, during the first days after the appointment of Comrade Martens, before he even concentrating on the wrong side of the issue.
started his activities, when on the political horizon Proposing commercial deals could very well of the relations between him and local revolutionary have been leit off until conditions could allow Socialist oranizations everything was peaceful and harmonious, and there were no indications of future actual shipping. Such technicalities do not restorms, Nicolas Hourwich in an article in the quire much time. As a method to arose interest Communist, April 19th, 1919 (organ of the in commercial centers, your very presence and some vague rumors about what is required and This struggle is by no means a purely local what can be given in exchange would have been product developing exclusively under American enough; you could never expect to gain more conditions, and relalons, as our slander specialists or less detailed negotiations that even from a would like to represent it. That this struggle has a universal character, based upon principles, narrow point of view would arouse special indiwhatever the external forms of its expression arevidual interests instead of more general.
and that it found expression even in Soviet Russia itself is evidenced in an article by Sorin en Pressure From the Workers.
The efforts for recognition were of course more titled Communist Party and Soviet Institutions, which first appeared in the Moscow Communist important and understand that this is the and later was reprinted in this country in the crucial point for all your deeds. For decidedly Novy Mir and in the Communist. We urge the side with Nic. Hourwich; the main force in comrades to reread this very instructive article In the light of this discussion.
Left wing of the Socialist Party) entitled Problems of the Representative of Soviet Ruesia in America wrote. Not for a single moment do we doubt the great importance of the purely diplomatic, so to say, activity here of the Soviet representative. Still less are we inclined to doubt the magic power the Russian gold the influence of this gold on the minds and disposition of American plutocracy has already manifested itself in a most obvious manner. But, with all due allowances, giving due Justice to all this, we should like to sound a warning to the American workers and to Comrade Martens himself against an undue exaggeration of the importance of his purely diplomatic commercial functions here. We would consider it a fatal mistake if purely diplomatie commercial effort become the centre of his activity.
And further: Comrade Lenine has stated that the final triumph or the ruin of the Proletarian Revolution in Russia depends on WHETHER THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS OF THE PROLETARIAT AND PROLETARIAN REVOLUTIONS IN OTHER COUNTRIES WILL COME TO ITS ASSISTANCE. And in this phrase one finds the KEY FOR THE UNDERSTANDNG OF THE PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION. Under present day political conditions, the re.
all volutionary movement of the proletarint in countries in the mnin thing. 1s the center of gravitation, is everything both for proletarian Russia and for the emancipation of the proletariat of all the world. The success or failure of the proletarian movement. THE STRENGTH OF THE BOLSHEVIST MOVEMENT, in coutries ruled by capitalism, is at the present moment a barometer of the favors able, or openly hostile, attitude of capitalist govs ernment towards Soviet Russia. The establishment of commercial intercourse between Russia and capitalist countries, with all its intrinsic advantage for the economic life of Russia, is on her side to a certain degree similar to the signing of the Brest Litovsk treaty, merely a means to gain time. All the foregoing, in our opinion, tends to indicate a line of behaviour for the revolutionary Socialist organizations of the American proletariat, as well as for Comrade Martens as the representative of the Russian Soviet Government. The center of his attention, the ever constant compass directing his activity here, should be the interests of the revolutionary Socialist movement among the American Proletariat, the interests of the advance rund, the hope and guarantee of the Kuccess of that movement THE LEFT WING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIALIST PARTY We are fully aware that in his manifold activities he may not always, or even frequently, be in a position to act UNDER THE BANNER of the Left Wing: but he should take great care that his attitude does not provide balt for the Right and Moderate social organizations, thereby unconsciously to tab in the back the only bulwarks and hope of proletarian Russis those whom it invites to its International Communist Congressthe Left Socialist Wing.
Compare the above quoted conclusions and recommendations with those formulated a year later in Comrade Rutgers letter and note the striking similarity.
Comrade Sorin in his article in the Moscow Communista previously alluded to, draws the very same conclusions, from an analysis of the very same question in substance, though transplanted from a foreign to what woula appear a more favorable soil, Russia itsell. But Comrade Sorin formulates his conclusions even more sharply and definitely. The party, which is comparatively safer from de.
moralization, should strengthen its control over the Soviet factions and place Soviet officials under its control and supervision. The Communist Party is, always and everywhere, superior to the Soviets.
Such similarity in opinions and conclusions is not a nere coincidence. All these conclusions and opinions, expressed by different people at different times and different places were dictated, essentially, by Communist thought. On this question, this was the only possible Communist conclusions. year ago the Communist made a diagnosis of the situation and prescribed for the patient, Comrade Martens, just what his political course should be and what diet he should follow. year later, another physician. Comrade Rutgers is compelled to calt attention to a serious disease which had developed because the patient had not followed instructions and diet prescribed for him.
Had Comrade Martens followed the Communist advice given to him a year ago, had he guided himself in his activities first and foremost by the interest of the world Communist movement in its entirety he would have escaped those fatal mistakes and errors. those humiliations and compromises, which did not help him to accomplish even those very modest and limited aims which he had set out to accomplish, but which, on the contrary. Sreatly harmed the American Communist movement singing into his ranks, and into the minds of its members, the greatest disorganization and demoralization. This is exactly what we predicted and we are sure, he is himself convinced of now.
We do not mean to say that if he had adopted the Communist method that his Immediate demands would have been accomplished by this time.
Oh, no! We are far removed from such an assumption: We do not dobt for a single instant that it his (Comrade Martens. activity had been more strikins, agressive (we do not speak of its revolutionary character) and more consistent, it at times. Continued on page cause And certainly to the Soviet Bureaus, we must also add.