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 objectivity, 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 simple gesture of the hand. Lenin MILITANT VOL. II. NO.
NEW YORK, JANUARY 1, 1929.
PRICE CENTS Our Appeal to the Party Members to an opportunistic as ever, we said with a the the Comrades. SPEECH OF JAMES CANNON AT THE which are connected with the present developments, Many of the most important events and turning PLENARY SESSION OF THE CENTRAL EX such as the internal questions of the Soviet Union, points in our Party life have been summed up in ECUTIVE COMMITTEE, WORKERS (COM the crisis in the Communist Party of Germany, etc. arty gatherings which stand out in Party history MUNIST) PARTY, MONDAY, DECEMBER etc. Since these questions are being elaborated in as the expression of these events. The present meet17, 1928. separate articles in The Militant this part of the ing of the Central Executive Committee, called speech is deleted to avoid repetition. confirm the the control of the Party by an Our views on the problems of the American since the foundation of the Party and even for Party and its leadership outlined in our statement and bureaucratic leadership and to endorse the ex.
pulsion of its years before that. Every step we have taken has popponents, is such a gathering. It will to the Political Committee on October 25th hold represent in Party been guided by this conception. Those acts which past certain features, certain details. stood out and in bringing our views before the Party, was imposed time. We spoke then of its opportunist political the significant Party meetings of the went beyond the bounds of ordinary Party procedure good today and have been underscored by the whole gave in themselves an indication of the whole char upon us by the action of the Party leadership in to defend outlook, its petty bourgeois origin, its corrupt facacter of the gatherings. This is true also of this denying us the right and opportunity features of the present meeting of the Central Execu views relate to principle questions, and therefore, it stralism, its careerism and adventurism in the class Let me mention a couple of these characteristic views within the Party by normal means. Our tive Committee.
is our duty openly to defend them in spite of all To speak now about the present Party leadership. we attempts to suppress them. We are bound to do this ferent language to characterize it. This estimate is were impressed as we entered the hall to see comrade Devine occupying the post as chairman a also in the future under all circumstances. written in unmistakable words in the election camnew distinction for him and you have all heard him October 25th and we repeat now, paing, the trade union work, the inner Party regime tell that we are unconditionally willing to confine our a brusque authority which is also new us and in all phases of Party life and activity.
for him that we will be given one hour and no activity to regular Party channels and to discon: more to answer the three hour reports against us.
tinue all extraordinary methods the moment our BUREAUCRACY AND GANGSTERISM The chairmanship of comrade Devine will not be defend our views in the Party press and at Party Party rights are restored and we are permitted to Since October 25th, the Pepper Lovestone leadership has taken further steps on the course of buthe District Organizer in that District (Minnesota) meetings. The decision and the responsibility rest wholly with the majority of the Central Executive day as a deadly menace a course which began with reaucratic disruption which confronts the Party towhere the expulsion of proletarian Communists for their views has attained the widest proportions.
Committee.
Twenty one comrades there have already been exthe expulsion of Communists, copied from the labor FOR THE RUSSIAN OPPOSITION fakers, and which has already taken another weapon pelled, and they are precisely the comrades whose from Events since our expulsion have only served to the have stood out in the labor movement of confirm more surely the correctness of the views of same arsenal the weapon of gangsterism.
Everyone sitting here knows the facts about this.
Minnesota for years as the very banner of Communism. The prestige our Party enjoys in the labor the Russian Opposition which we support. The You know that inspired and organized gangster atmomentous developments in the Communist Party of tacks have been made against us on the public streets, to their loyal, untiring and sacrificial work that we have that meaning and no other. Life itself is proving the Soviet Union and throughout the Comintern not once but several times.
Woe to the Party of the workers if its proletarian owe the 5, 000 votes more than 10 per cent of the the validity of their platform. Even those who kernel does not arise and stamp out these incipient we received in the elections in Minnesota. The house the front the party and the cominent, are today from the black jacks of gangsters which have de election of comrade Devinc, who is responsible for compelled, under the pressure of events and forces scended on the heads of Opposition Communists are SYYS Organizers who bring about the great counts of the Opposition which were branded as the conferring of exceptional honors upon has a meaning in the light of those facts which overwhelm them, to give lip service to it, to blows at the very foundation of the Party. This to adopt it. Many of the statements and abominable gangsterism, for which the leaders of the two factions collaborating against us, the Loveand counter revolutionary a year ago are today solemn stone faction the Foster faction, are directly reest disruption. It puts the scal of approval upon iy repeated, almost word for word, as the quintes sponsible, is hated by every honest worker. It dismunists. Thus the chairmanship of Devine is a the true leaders and defenders of the Russian Revo threatens to deprive the Party of its moral and symbol of the Plenum.
lution remain in in exile and there is in the against these methwhatever that the advertized left course ods of the trade union reactionaries.
will mean anything more than a cover for further Only the blindest bureaucrat, or the most irreThe second significant detail wish to mention concessions to the Right wing whose policy directly sponsible dilettante adventuring in the movement, is the selection of Pepper as the Reporter against us.
undermines the dictatorship. The victorious fight can fail to see the unbounded consequences This fact epitomizes the Plenum, and the whole of the Party masses in Russia and throughout the bureaucratic expulsion policy of the Lovestone Pepissue around which it centers, better than anything Comintern against this disgraceful and dangerous per leadership and react with alarm against it. It we could say. It demonstrates in deed that the fight course cannot be much longer postponed. directly threatens the existence of the Party. The (Note: Here followed an exposition of various first step was the expulsion of three members of the placed from the beginning on the lowest basis and parts of the platform of the Russian Opposition Central Executive Committee in the futile hope that must use the instruments.
The the issues could thereby be disposed of. But the very in the Communist movement of all that is most corrupt and most detestable to revolutionaries, as the Reporter as a result of the action against us and called forth against us, to bring here The Truth About the demand for our for our expulsion in itself discredits that plawsed since that time more than sixty proletarians demand. The very fact that the sewage of slander have been expelled from the Party for their views against us and our comrades is poured out officially and glibly denounced as renegades and counterhere through the mouth of puts an evaluarevolutionaries by people who are scarcely worthy tion on this slander, it answers and refutes to criticize them in any respect.
ale Communist by defending hon against the accusations of this characterless adAND THE Bureaucratic suppression has its own logic. It begins with the expulsion of individuals and ends venturer whose unspeakable record shames the Russian Opposition with the disruption of the movement. Yesterday munist movement of the world. The Communist who constitute the forces of the Opposition, we saw the attempt to suppress the views of the LECTURE BY with the honorable record of the are in no need such a defense. years behind them, JAMES CANNON Euple grounds. Today already inspired resolutions For revolutionaries the calumny of a Pepper is only a mark of Party units are making the against the limited criticisms of the Foster group, a badge of honor. It is those who elected Pepper as the Reporter against us who will with the threat of organizational measures after the packed and gerrymandered convention has enhave need of this defense before the Party and be LABOR TEMPLE dorsed the regime. Bureaucratism is alien to the fore the proletariat which judges the Party by its proletarian Communist movement. Bureaucratism spokesmen.
242 East 14th Street (near Second Avenue)
cannot stand criticism. It cannot stand discussion.
In the period that has intervened since our exBureaucratism, which is an expression of bourgeois pulsion on October 25th, we have continued to re Tuesday, Jan. 8, 1929 at influence, and Lenin proletarian doctrine cannot gard ourselves as Party members and have conlive together.
ducted ourselves as Communists, as we have done ADMISSION 25 CENTS CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE the present PEPPER REPORTS AGAINST US of the vilest selection of Pepper, the bearer next TROTSKY it.
will not not insult a Com same demand AT THE distinction and