AnarchismBolshevismBourgeoisieCominternCommunismCommunist ManifestoCommunist PartyDemocracyKamenevLeninLeninismMarxismOpportunismRadekRussian RevolutionSocial DemocracySocialismSovietStalinStalinismSyndicalismTrotskyURSSViolenceWorking ClassZinoviev

Page THE MILITANT March 1, 1929.
March 1, 1929.
THE MILITANT Page On the Legend of Trotskyism Epitaph for a recall no proletarian a struggle for old literary OC che Party against the y taken moet War, Kellogg Pact and new more.
party!
Dear Comrades!
member the exact date) two members of the Op Lessons of October had not appeared, Zinoviev After a long pause, Comrades Zinoviey and position came from Leningrad to Moscow to ex then answered: Certainly it would have taken Kamenev and their closest friends are again begin ercise pressure on the 1923 Group in the question place, for the plan to open up this discussion was ning with the legend of Trotskyism. For the last of Trotskyism. They repeated all the stock already in existence and we only lay in wait for two years they went with us, together with us they phrases about the permanent revolution. about a pretext. None of the supporters of the 1925.
worked out the most important documents of the the insufficient estimation of the peasantry and Group who were present expressed any disaagree.
Opposition, among them also the Platform. At Comrade Zinoviev asked me, together with the of Zinoviev as a generally well known fact.
difficulties arose in the struggle to carry out the other leading comrades of the 1923 Group, to par. January 2, 1928.
line of the Opposition under the assault of world ticipate in a discussion that was to take place at Elzin.
reaction and attacks at home, comrades Zoniviev comrade Kamenev home. The discussion assumed a rather violent character, mainly between ZinoLetter from Radek and Kamenev turned back to the bugbear of viev and Lashevitch on the one side and the com35: Trotskyism. For this reason would like to es rades who had come from Leningrad on the other. heard about it after it took place from was not present at the first conversation but tablish a few facts. When the so called literary discussion (in accurately the words that Lashe Trotsky.
1924) was kindled, a number of comrades close vitch shouted out to the Leningraders. Don stand the matter on its head. We in was present at the conversation with comrade to our group declared that the publication of The Lessons of October was a tactical error because it vented Trotskyism fogether with you in the strug Kamenev when Kamenev said he would gave the then majority of the Political Bureau the she against Trotsky: Why won you understand openly declare at the Plenum of the Central Com. thisYou. Zinoviev said: to my part, maintained that the literary discussion We must acknowledge together with Stalin decided to utilize old differ what happened. It was ences of opinion between Trotsky and Lenin so as come in any case, on one ground or another. The essence of the literary discussion e for power. The trick was to combine the to keep Trotsky from the leadership of the Party rences of opinion with new questions. For after Lenin death. Besides this heard repeatedtations as possible against me and by outraging this. Trotskyism was invented. no ly from the mouth of Zinoviev and Kamenev how This conversation made a deep impression upon they invented Trotskyism as an actual slogan, them among the uninformed Party masses. The us, the members of the 1923 Group, even though December 25, 1927 discussion the mechanics of the Karl Radek The Lessons of October. Any one of my books and struggle against before. On the way as the oc.
any of my speeches could have serotskyism in impressions and repeated the Radek here recalls a striking incident that is not casion to begin the hunt crassest expressions of Lashevitch and Zinoviev. mentioned in my letter. During the July Plenum That was my reply to those comrades Besides that, reported the discussion the same day in 1927, Zinoviev and Kamenev were driven into who were inclined to view the publication of The to a few close comrades who had not participated a Lessons of October as tactical error.
in the conference That is why many formula against Trotskyisimm. Since Kamenev hoped get After our bloc with the Leningrad Group had tions of Zinoviev and Lashevitch have remained the floor again on the question of the Opposition, place, put approximately the following so well fixed in my memory.
he wanted to take the bull by the horns and de question in a discussion with comrade Zinoviev: Now that comrades Kamenev and Zinoviev are clare openly before the Plenum how and why the me, please, if had not published The Les again trying to make use of the same trick. that Trotskyist danger was invented. But the speakers en list was closed and Kamenev did not get the floor cussion against Trotskyism have taken place in tirely new questions of capitulation, ask that again.
you what or an other participant in these. spite of that or not?
remembers reported to you on the expressions of Trotsky.
me Naturally The Lessons of October was only a Lashevitch and Zinoviev. The exact establishment the motive; the forms of the discussion would have and can be useful in dumming up the results Lessons of December (1927. In the July declaration signed by Zinoviev With Communist greetings, the Soviet Union and Kamenev. There can no longer be Trotsky.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE any doubt that, as the ent leading faction ion has shown, the Opposition of Letter from Preobrazhensky not found the government of the United States among those governments who are carrying on intrigues against departure from from the proletarian line and the menacI confirm everything brought out in this docu our Union. We do not forget that during our most ditof the apparatus regime, ingdreds of leaders of the 1923 Opposition, The two Leningrad comrades who are mentioned zation, headed at that time by the future president of the ment. Only Lashevitch said: We invented Trot ficult years, the famine years, the American people came Yet dozens skyism without the words together with you. to our aid with the generous efforts of the Ara organiamong them many workers, old Bolsheviks, steeled United States, Hoover.
were quite sincerely worried about Trotsky. Inprecor, ibid. page 1706. in the struggle and alien to careerism and see vihelyi ism. The meeting took place at Comrade Kam Is Hoover deceived by these suave words? Not subsmission to all discipline.
their. for a moment! He remembers very well the Ameri3. At the joint plenum of the Central Commit few days before or after cannot recall exactly.
can intervention in Siberia. He knows that it was and the Central Control Commission of July December 29, 1927.
through his generous American Relief Admin14 istration Preobrazhensky.
that the Hungarian to July 23, 1926, Zinoviev said: Soviet republic was I have made mistakes. But consider two drowned in blood. He knows that the United mistakes as my most important ones.
States is financing the anti Soviet activities of Po My first Letter from Piatakov is known land and Rumania. But the workers who read the to all. The second You ask me to inform you what know about official pronouncements of Litvinov in the name mistake consider more dangerous, since the first the speeches of Laskevitch and Zinoviev on the of the Soviet Union will be deceived as to Hoover occasion of a discussion with Leningrad. comrades to by:31 after a few days even if it is was done with the help of Lenin, but my mistake of 1923 conon Trotskyism which took place in Kameney Party will be deprived of its weapons in fighting home. no longer remember all that was said.
Hoover and American imperialism.
But Ordjonikidze: you wanted to make the so called Trotskyism with the greatest attention, since have always followed the question of That is the practical result to the working class Party believe something?
movement of the signing of the Kellogg Pact by Zinoviev: We say, there can no longer be any 26 was of the greatest political interest for me and since the position of the Opposition of 1925. the Soviet Union and the diplomatic speeches of doubts now that the kernel of the 1923 Opposition: remember quite clearly what comrades Zinoviev the spokesmen of the Stalin regime. The reason as the development of the leading faction has and Lashevitch said. The sense of their words was for this anti Leninist course the pernicious theory is shown, correctly warned against the departure from the following: Trotskyism had been invented socialism can be completed in Russia alone alone if only is prevented, Signoiyth of the apparatus regime. In the questhe inevitably leads tion of deterioration and in the question of bureau alleged differences, that is, to utilize historical dife to world bourgeoisie. It entails an accomodating attitude to the world bour viucracy! Trotskyism was right in the end against present, for definite purposes mentioned above. geoisie, for if an isolated national socialist In this manner Zinoviev admitted his mistake of This was told the comrades from Leningrad who is to be built. then, according to to Stalinism, military hesitated on the question of Trotskyism and intervention must be off at in the struggle against Trotsky, and even at any price. One of they wanted to explain to them who had invented these prices is the Kellogg Pact and all that it incharacterized it as more dangerous than that of Trotskyismº and to what end.
volves. But payment does not buy off. This acknowledgment of comrade Zinoviev Moscow, January 2, 1928, intervention because it undermines the revolution catted forth astonishment among many Leningrad ary capacities of the proletariat Oppositionists who had sincerely believed in the countries, the strongest deterrent to war against Russia. Another price that revolutionary Russia of Trotskyism. Comrade Zinoviev told Letter from Elzin must pay is the drive to exterminate the Leninist me repeatedly: Dear Leo Davidovitch. In Leningrad we hammered it into the con Opposition.
sciousness of the comrades more deeply than any curred in Kamenev home on the eve of the dece is deported to Turkey. Stalin, together with Kele remember very exactly an episode that och Trotsky, the living leader of world Bolshevism, where else and it is therefore more difficult to laration of October 16th, during a debate on the logg, Chamberlain, Briand and Stresemann, sign learn anew there.
Shortly before the departure of comrade Lashe: On your question, as to whether the discussion on supplements the order. Both are blows struck at literary discussion and The Lessons of October. the great Kellogg peace pact.
vitch to the Chinese Easterx Wailway (I cannot re Trotskyism would have taken place even if the the foundation of Lenin work.
munist proposed at an election meeting to set free Scoundrel the imprisoned Communists, Pepper answered him as follows: speak in the name of the Hungarian working Pages from the Record of John Pepper class movement (He always talked tall ia the name of the social democratic party, and these By Ladislaus Rudas, President of the International be indicated here. Pepper, the most ambitious and will use mass terror against everyone who seeks to Lenin School of Moscow conscienceless demagogue ever to be found in the terrorize in any way the representatives of the Hun social democracy; whose Marxism always congarian working class (namely: himself, John Pep.
per! Pester Lloyd, March 20, 1919.
The litaht. ove referred to the malodorous records of of the dominant men in power in the Party to stormy enthusiasm. people commissars sisted in covering with a theory the basest instincts Two days later they became Pepper even with the present leaders of the Party who are expelling profetarian Communists wholesale. Many comrades have been (Page 41 found a formula precisely for the commonest and astounded at the statements we made and wonder if it can be really true that such people control the Party. most vulgar arguments. this Pepper strutted about Can it be possible, they ask, that people branded by The Communists Force Pepper Resignation as the leader of the soldiers councils in the first their own past as Social Patriots, jailors of Communists: days of the bourgeois revolution. Even the The Communists were naturally embittered that hearted cowards. Renegade Anti Red crusaders, former workers councils were nothing but a pseudo insti the fate of the Party should be decided over their enemies of the Russian Revolution, former agents of Hill. tution named by the party and trade union bureau heads. Mainly, however, did the Communists quit and Berger in the fight against the Communists, cracy to hinder the creation of a real revolutionary People Commissar for Military Affairs, the same feel bitter over the naming of John Pepper as etc. are parading as the leaders of Communism and institution of the proletariat, a expelling and defaming revolutionaries with honorable a pseudo institution records behind them?
with no power at its command and with will Pepper who, of all the social democrtas, had acted Yes, all the statements are truc. Nobody dares to chal. to exert influence, just so was the soldiers coun most shamelessly and despicably towards the Comlenge a single one of them, for they can all be proven cil seized by the social democratic and served munists, who coined the phrase of left counterby documentary evidence.
only to divert the pro revolution. The in revolutionaries against them, who was prepared John Pepper. now in Moscow) whose record is set to assume the role of Noske and to order out machforth below, is one of the main leaders and is the Mos strument of the social democracy was John cow wire puller of the present Party regime. He is one per, whom the soldiers council served to satisfy ine guns against the revolutionary soldiers.
The of those scoundrels (there are many of them) who have taken the places in the Communist International of its his personal lust for power. He worked with full Communists did not allow even the threats of Kun to restrain them and moved en masse before whose principal occupation is the fight against Trots republic. To show that he would maintain this the building of the People Commisariat of Mili kyism, the term which is being used nowadays to define post, not to the detriment, but to the benefit of tary Affairs and forced Pepper to resign. On April Leninism.
the bourgeoisie, he stormed against the Commun Nepszava published the report of his resignation, Pepper is the author of many of the slanderous de nunciations of the expelled Communists and one of those ists whom he was the first to designate as left (Page 58. who incited to to violence against us. He was selected counter revolutionaries. His expressions best charby the at the last Plenum to deliver the report acterize therefore the counter revolutionary nature Pepper Wants a Second Party against us and to demand our expulsion as counter re. of the social democracy, since he was always mere There were many who blamed Bela Kun entire volutionaries. below shows that he is well qualified by experience for ihatene aide legalite documente printed ly the empty headed mouthpiece of the prevailingly for the failure of the revolution.
Thus, for example, John Pepper openly pro this kind of a job.
demagogy. Page 29 30. We quote here a number of extracts from a book claimed that Bela Kun was a traitor, that he must written by Ladislaus Rudas, one of the leaders of the Pepper and the Bolsheviks be eliminated from the movement, that a new party Hungarian Revolution, who knows Pepper well. The While participating, at the beginning of Decem must be founded. We all wanted a new party, but book, entitled Adventurers and Liquidationism. Aben. ber 1918, in a meeting of the Ministry for Military Pepper immediately became a liquidator. He teuerer und Liquidatorentum. was published in Venna in 1922 for party circulation by the Votos Ujsag Verlag.
Affairs at which martial law against the Commun wanted to found a party on new principles; and Ladislaus Rudas is now the head of the International ists was considered, he (Pepper) declared: Lenin School at Moscow.
that the new Communist Party should be a consider the whole Bolshevik movement, whose ants party. An open, legal peasants party since In this Pepper before the War a few immature persons who have returned from Hungary was an agrarian country!
Russia. Vorog Ujsag, December 11, 1918. he drew up a memorandum and sent it to Michael TI conduct this sham battle against a sham sons began to bear ripe fruit, Pepper coined the wie former president of the People Re But when this movement led by immature perbrow three passages out of a hundred articles. He of hisa since he had chosen this gentleman as the At any rate, it was re.
tore these pasages out of their context where, alone, them.
to use the most shameless methods against by Karolyi, for Karolyi, personally one of they might be condemned. He tore these pas He ordered out machine guns and armored cars bourgeois politicians, would not sages out of little notices where they were never against the soldiers who demanded in a demonstra a single moment have anything to do with a intended as slogans but as agitation, and took the Pepper. Then, said he, the proletariat needs ne field against them with all the commonplaces tion the dismissal of the at that of ter revolutionary Minister of War Festetich party, since every proletarian in Hungary is a Communist, it is only necessary to put arms in patterns which he applies everywhere, whether (Voros Ujsag, January 11, 1919. he ordered the his hands and the revolution is here again! At they fit or not. He gave long discourses on Com (Voros Ujsag, January 15, 1919. in numerous liquidator. Page 96 one and the same time he was a right and a left munism standing for the expropriation of the means of production, for large speeches he summoned the soldiers to pogroms these were not ruisms Factories, etc. as to us when Pepper was still editor in chief of the when he enjo y well known urally, he sailed in the filthiest nationalist waters Chicago Comrades Protest petty bourgeois boulevard sheet Friss Ujsag, while and Magyar mean the enjoined the soldiers: Social democrat had for some time been editor of the central or March 6, 1919. This remark was made by Pepper Workers Communist Party (Voros Ujsag, To the District Convention gan of the social democracy in Budapest (1905. to incite the soldiers to the new imperialist war District No.
It is a piece of knavery when such as he would teach me about anarchism and syndicalism, where ian bourgeoisie. He had translated this passage against the Czechs in the interests of the Hungar. Dear Comrades: We request that you read the following to the it was who left the social democracy for its cor directly from the Communist Manifesto into Hun District Convention: ruption when Pepper to make a career joined garian (Page 31. We have witnessed recently a series of expulit. page 191 sions of leading and proletarian comrades, most of Pepper. During the War Pepper Imprisons Bela Kun On January 2, 1919, the Communist soldiers in whom participated in the formation of our Party, Without investigation Bela Kun ordered the exone of the barracks demanded the resignation of and actively engaged in Party work. These expulsion from the Party of this comrade (in charge pulsions took place because of their political views of the Party illegat work. Ed. who had been the then reactionary War Minister. Pepper there the or protesting expulsion policy.
een upon ordered the arrest of Bela Kun. Az Est active in the working class movement for twenty of January 2, 1919, wrote as follows on the mat2. The expulsion policy carries all the dangers of destroying our Party and is the path to split our many months during the war for the anti militarist ter: John Pepper, government commissar of the sol. In our opinion the expulsions are only ai!
propaganda conducted while an officer, who led to diers council expressed himself to us about the de effort on the part of the CEC majority to conccal peasants revolts during the Karolyi revolution and monstration of the Communist soldiers: during the entire period of the dictatorship fought The entire Communistic soldiers demonstration their right wing errors. It is an effort to hide the only shows that the Communists cannot really in real danger facing our Party, the right danger exfluence the soldiers, that the soldier masses as a despite the fact that he was a social democrat. He emplified by the Lovestone group. This has only whole are supporters of the social democratic. party ordered this punishment the severest that a Com and are soldiers of the People republic. Contrary the effect of perpetuating the right wing danger munist can suffer carried out by the same Pep to the artificial blatherskiting, the truth is that it in our Party and the continuance of their bureauper who, as Royal and Imperial war correspondent is just the soldier mases who were the ones that ar cratic control.
drank toasts to Austrian Generals while this com rested Bela Kun and his colleagues, and refused to expulsion took place on the basis that rada risked his life in anti militarist agitation!
give them the floor. Page 31. these comrades adopted the position of Trotskyism (Page 118. Pepper Turns Commissar!
or protested the expulsion of Comrades Cannon, bern and Shachtman. It must be stated that the Pepper the Social Democrat Yesterday still democrats they (the social dem discussion on Trotskyism was inadequate, and it is On February 20, 1919, great masses moved dem ocrats) today became supporters of the proletarian necessary to hold a frce and open discussion of the onstratively before the building of the social de dictatorship; yesterday still ministers of the bour Russian Opposition with the documents present.
mocratic organ Nepszava. Clashes took place with geois government, they today became without We wish to emphatically protest against the the police in which a number of them were killed any transition People Commissars of the expulsions, and demand the reinstatement of these. The day after the demonstration the Commun government. On March 19, Siegmund Kunfi still comrades to their former duties and Party ist leaders were arrested and brutally beaten in made a long speech at election meetings where Fraternally yours, prison.
I, he writes, took a position everywhere against Jack Cohen, Dan Pollin, Fannie Atinuk, To characterize the conceptions of the social the dictatorship and for democratic socialism.
Rebecca Sacherot. Clausen, democracy another article, by John Pepper, which John Pepper, however, still said the same thing Bornstein, Elsis, Meyers, Krenich, Osappeared in Nepszava of February 21, 1919, should as Kunfi on March 19, 1919. And when a Com heroff, Leon Mussel, Lillian Borgeson.
the most honest cent of the prethe against the 1s and tee many cals mistake of 1917 sisted in. idze That is socialism to opportunism before The even this SG. Piatakov.
in the imperialist The one act