BolshevismCominternCommunismCommunist PartyDemocracyLeninLeninismOpportunismRadekSovietTrotskyURSSVoroshílovWorking Class

The 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 objectivit, first the substance of the differences of opinion, and then the development of the struggles with in the Party. Neither the one nor the other can be done unless the documents of both sides are published. He who takes somebody word for it is a hopeless idiot, who can be disposed of with a siple gesture of the hand. Lenin MILITANT VOL. No.
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 15, 1928 PRICE CENTS For the Russian Opposition!
tional Soviet 10. The Opposition Against Opportunism and Bureaucracy in the Workers Communist Party of America. STATEMENT TO AMERICAN COMMUNISTS BY JAMES CANNON, MARTIN ABERN AND MAX SHACHTMAN. In the view of the necessity of concentrating On October 27 the undersigned members of the Cen mental correcteness of the document. It merely the full attention of the Party on the election tral Executive Committee were declared expelled from the demonstrates the political instability of these campaign, we have retrained up till now from any Party for the views expressed in our statement to the Political Committee on the same date, which is printed leaders which hampers the process of developing statement or step calculated to open a Party dis below. This action, taken by the Political Committee in an opposition to the present right wing leadership cussion on disputed questions until the election violation of the Party constitution, without even the campaign will have been ended and the pre conformality of a meeting of the Central Executive Com have no doubt that the supporters of the Opposi.
vention discussion opened.
mittee to which we were elected by the Party convention, was designed to deprive the Party members of the oppor.
tion who have regarded the struggle against the We have definite views on a series of tunity to hear our views and to insure themselves against right wing leadership as a principle question will fundamental questions vitally affecting the whole any opposition in the forthcoming Party discussion and continue to adhere to this position despite the future of the Party and the Comintern which it elections to the Party convention. Our views relate to vacillations and maneuvers of a section of the was our intention to bring before the Party in the principle questions upon which it is not possible for revy leaders.
pre convention discussion period.
these views in the Party according to the rules for Party The problems of the American Party are The discussion of these questions condiscussion laid down in the Party constitution. The organically bound up with the fundamental ques.
tions confronting the Communist Party of the ducted up till now has not been a real discussion our rights as Party members compels us to take this Soviet Union and the Comintern, and cannot since many of the documents in our opinion method of direct appeal to the Party members in order solved separately from them. The left wing of the be some of the most important political documents of and concealed expound our views in the columns of the Militant until American Party. taking shape in the principle conce our time have been sumintern or presented to from the parties of the our Party rights are restored. Editor.
struggle against the right wing leadership of the them in garbled form. The opportunity which has come to us in the recent period to read a number and to begin a public campaign against us in only insofar as it recognizes the necessity of a of these documents, dealing with some of the most the Party press make it necessary to state our scale and links up its fights in the American disputed problems of the Comintern in the past position without further delay. It must be made five years, together with the rapid confirmation of clear to the Party that the measures are being Party with the Bolshevik fight for the fundamental their correctness by the whole course of events, taken against us solely because of our political Communist Party of the Union and in the Comintern.
have shaped our views and convictions. We con views. These views must be presented to the Party sider it our revolutionary duty to defend these as they really are.
in the Communist Party views before the Party of the Soviet Union led by Trotsky has been present them here in outline form and will elaborate on them more fully in our appeal to fighting for the unity of the Comintern and all the opening of the Party discussion after the the Central Executive Committee against the The correctness of the position taken by the Ruselection campaign. However, the arbitrary actions sian Opposition over a period of five years of already taken against us (our removal from all Se stand on the main line of the document struggle has been fully confirmed by events.
positions on October 16) and the plain indica entitled The Right Danger in the American a) The struggle led by Trotsky since 1923 for tions shown in the present hearing bf the inten Party (excepting certain erroneous formulations tion to take further organizational measures dealing with the world position and role of AmerParty democracy and against bureaucratism as the ican imperialism. presented to the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern by the delegation of the in the we active Radek believe this. As set forth in this document, we that the present leadership of the Party, mechanically imposed In Canada sciously developing right wing, whose course and Maurice Spector, member of the Executive Committee The most alarming reports have reached us concerning enditio the epost tent eine position of the headly contiene class strdemesines from the communicerentions can be store in comprended endorse the expulsion of Cannon, Abern and Shachtman exiled to Turkestan and Western Siberia respectively. activities since the presentation of our document from the Communist Party of America and for his state.
Both of them are severely stricken with malaria and unless on The Right Danger in the American Party to ment defending his position and supporting our demand they are iven the most careful medical attenti grave the World Congress, have confirmed and not re for the publication of the suppressed documents of the concern is felt for their lives.
We have just received a message from Moscow, from futed this estimate. The irresponsible adventurism, Russian Opposition. His statement, a scathing arraign.
unquestionably reliable and authentic sources, which tells the factional degeneration and bureaucratic cor ment of the bureaucratio regime, will be printed in the next number of The Militant.
of the repercussions among the Russian workers. Despite ruption of the Lovestone group leadership are an The great seriousness for the entire Communist move.
the utmost official vigilance to hush up the story of organic part of its fundamental opportunist char ment of North America of the action taken against comTrotsky and Radek illness, the entire city of Moscow acter rade Spector will be realized when it is pointed out that woke up this morning (i. e. the day this letter was written)
to find the walls and buildings all over the city placarded The latest decision of the secretariat of the he was unanimously elected to the Executive Committee of the Communist International at the Sixth World Congress with appeals by the Opposition workers to the Moscow which undertakes to dismiss a whole on the nomination of the Canadian delegation. He has proletariat to protest against the scandalous treatment series of principle questions raised in our indict been the Chairman of the Canadian Party for many years accorded the exiled Bolsheviks in their illness.
The Volkswille, organ of the German opposition, re.
ment of the Party leadership with a formal motion, and the editor of the Party organs, the Canadian Worker and the Canadian Labor Monthly. The suspension of ports a letter written by Sosnowski to the Moscow giving no answer whatesoever to the burning comrade Spector, the political leader of the Canadian the seriousness of Trotsky illness a les confirmed by the struggle. serves only to strengthen the mechanical Izvestia, official organ of the Soviet Government, in which questions of the Party in all fields of the class 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 place of exile. The banished revolutionst malarial con dition has been rendered more serious by other complica our Party. This bureaucratic secretarial method of leadership depends on an abrogation of the democratic rights of the party members.
tions. Sosnowski bitterly protests against the cold blooded dealing with disputed principle questions must be We send our warmest greetings to our fellow fighter in cynicism of the present chairman of the Revolutionary emphatically rejected by the Party both in form the Canadian Communist Party and express the confi.
famous with his cering reply at a meeting when a workand content, since they have nothing in confmon dence that his fight against our expulsion will be met et asked about th: darbing reports regarding Trotsky with Lenin teaching regarding the ideological with reciprocal support from the proletarian Communists health: leadership of all Communist Parties by the Comin in the ranks of our party. Our cause is international and The life of Lenin co worker, one of the geniuses of tern and the struggle against opportthe Communist militants of all countries must fight to the revolution, lion hearted Trotsky, is in imminent dan.
gether for it.
fronts.
ger! The condition of Comrade Radek is also serious.
on all As we go to press word comes also of expulsion pro Should the official neglect that is being substituted for The present attempt of some of the leaders ceedings beginning against other members of the Com.
comradely aid prove fatal to these revolutionary giants, of the Foster Bittelman group who signed the doc munist Party of America and the the their blood will be upon the heads of those who persecute ument on the Right Danger to abandon that who oppose our expulsion. It is being attempted to carry them and those who do not protest.
to moderate the struggle against the out this campaign of disruption behind a curtain of silence Communist workers of America: in the official party press. But this game will not suc Lovestone Pepper right wing, and to effect a polit ceed. The real facts about the attempt to silence the Defend the lives of Trotsky and Radek!
ical coalescence with them in order to direct their Demand their return to Moscow and the provision of voice of Communist workers by expulsion, which the the best raedical aid in their illness!
attack against those who remain true to that platparty bureaucrats have learned from Sigman and Lewis, An end to the persecution of the fighters for Bolshev. form and develop its logical and inevitabile interwill be revealed in the next number of The Militant.
The. expulsion of the editors of The Militant is dealt with ism!
national implications, in no way alters the funda on another page of this issue.
Opposition, drafting of which we Spector Expelled Trotsky and SeriouslyIll against the wind upon the Party by the the membership, is a con platform,